VOA慢速英语 Agriculture Report - Improving 'Feed Efficiency' in Cattle

Agriculture Report - Improving 'Feed Efficiency' in Cattle

农业报道 - 提高牛的饲养效率

From VOA Learning English, this is the Agriculture Report in Special English.

这里是美国之音慢速英语农业报道。

Animal feed is the biggest cost for most cattle producers. In the United States, the cost of hay, grains and other feed has risen sharply because of a drought. At the same time, wildfires this year burned more than a million hectares of North American rangeland.

对多数养牛人来说，动物饲料是最大的成本。由于干旱，美国干草、谷物和其它饲料的成本急剧上升。与此同时，野火今年烧毁了1百多万公顷的北美牧场。

Jack 1 Field raises cattle in the northwestern state of Washington. To save money, he made plans to truck his small herd 2 of cows three hundred kilometers to feed on crop stubble. Crop stubble is what remains 3 after crops have been harvested.

杰克·菲尔德（Jack Field）在西北的华盛顿州养牛。为了省钱，他已计划将他的一小群牛用卡车运到3百公里以外去吃作物残茬。作物残茬是作物收割后的残留物。

Moving his cattle from farm to farm costs money and time. But he says if he can avoid feeding them hay, he can still make a profit.

将牛在农场之间运输需要耗费时间和金钱。但他表示，如果能够避免用干草喂它们，他仍然可以从中获利。

Tim DelCurto is a beef scientist at Oregon State University. He is working with ranchers and feedlot owners to help them find lower cost ways to feed cattle. He says cattle can eat things like grass-seed straw and distillers grains. These grains are left over from ethanol fuel production.

Tim DelCurto是美国俄勒冈州立大学的菜牛专家。他正与牧场主及饲养场的业主合作，帮助他们找到成本更低的方式来喂养牲畜。他说，牛可以吃废草籽和酒糟之类的东西。酒糟是乙醇燃料生产遗留下来的。

He says cattle can also eat cannery waste and items rejected by vegetable processors -- like misshapen green beans, carrots, even French fries.

他说，牛还能吃罐头厂的废料和蔬菜加工者丢弃的东西，像畸形的青豆、胡萝卜，甚至是薯条。

"Now I think one of the unique attributes of beef cattle -- and sheep would fit this, too -- is that they can virtually digest anything."

“我认为菜牛和羊能适应这些食物，它们的一大特性就是可以消化任何东西。”

The rising cost of feed has led agricultural research universities to give greater attention to what experts call "feed efficiency." The University of Idaho has a cattle barn where sensors 4 measure exactly how much food each cow eats.

饲料成本的上涨引发农业研究型大学对专家们所谓的“饲养效率”给予了更大关注。爱达荷大学有一件牛舍，这里的传感器可以精确测量每头奶牛吃多少食物。

Professor Rod Hill says just because animals are growing at the same rate does not mean they eat the same amount of food. In fact the difference in how efficiently 5 their bodies convert feed into meat, fat, bone and hide might be surprising. 

罗德·希尔（Rod Hill）教授表示，这是因为生长速度相同的动物不意味着它们吃的食物量也相同。实际上，它们的身体将饲料转换为肉、脂肪、骨、皮的效率差异可能是令人惊讶的。

"These animals are -- for your eye and mine -- they look quite homogenous 6. But the variation in intake 7 for animals growing at the same rate is of the order of thirty-five percent."

“从你我看来，这些动物看上去相当一致。但生长速度相同的动物的食物摄入量偏差大约是35%。”

This is a case where humans and animals have something in common.

这是人类和动物一致的地方。

"You know, we talk to people who say, 'All I have to do is, is, is look at the candy store and, and I put on three pounds.' We don't actually quantify it so precisely 8 in humans, but we know in humans that some people can eat a little and they can put on quite a bit of weight and some people can eat a lot and hardly put on any weight. So it's a biological phenomenon."

“你知道，有些人说‘我只是看看糖果店都会长三磅肉。’我们不会去精确量化这些，我们知道有些人吃一点点就能胖很多，而有些人吃很多却很难胖一点。所以这是一种生物现象。”

Rod Hill says ranchers can use selective breeding to get the same growth with less feed. But he says not to focus too much on one thing, like reducing fat.

希尔表示，牧场主可以采用选择性喂养，用较少饲料获得同样的增长。但他表示，不要过于关注一件事情，如降低脂肪。

"Less-efficient animals are slightly fatter, and more-efficient animals are slightly leaner. So we wouldn't want to just go after efficiency and then forget about the body composition. So, we wouldn't want animals to become too lean, so that might reduce marbling in the product, especially in the quality cuts where the profit is."

“低效率动物略肥，高效率动物稍瘦。我们不希望一味追求效率而忘了身体结构。我们不希望动物太瘦，这样会降低肉类产品的纹路，特别是利润所在的高质量肉片。”