Table 4.

Blood pressure, heart rate (HR), respiration rate (RR), rectal temperature (RT), and surface temperature for steers fed endophyte-free (E−) or endophyte-infected (E+) fescue seed for 14 d above (Experiment 1) or within (Experiment 2) their thermoneutral zone.

Item	Day of feeding fescue seeda
	4		8		14			P =
	E−	E+	E−	E+	E−	E+	SE	Day	Day × Trtb
EXPERIMENT 1
Systolic, mm Hg	104.2	97.7	104.1	102.0	104.8	101.6	2.9	0.63	0.49
Diastolic, mm Hg	48.7	48.0	48.3	54.1	47.5	52.4	1.9	0.26	0.08
S–Db, mm Hg	54.5	56.0	54.8	49.0	56.2	50.2	2.5	0.81	0.78
HR, beats/min	62	57	62	57	63	58	1	0.17	0.95
RR, breaths/min	31	30	32	34	32	50	1.8	0.01	0.01
RT, °C	38.3	38.3	38.3	38.5	38.3	38.9	0.1	0.01	0.01
Surface Temperature, °C
Rear legsc	33.8	33.9	33.5	34.3	34.1	34.4	0.24	0.11	0.32
Front legsc	34.8	35.1	34.9	35.0	35.1	35.4	0.21	0.35	0.82
Front–rear legs	1.07	1.18	1.41	0.73	0.91	0.93	0.21	0.54	0.07
Left side	36.4	36.8	36.6	37.0	36.9	37.4	0.2	0.08	0.99
EXPERIMENT 2
Systolic, mm Hg	116.1	103.7	114.9	108.3	110.0	106.7	3.2	0.45	0.07
Diastolic, mm Hg	57.1	58.9	56.4	59.7	55.7	56.6	1.9	0.49	0.72
S-D, mm Hg	56.7	47.2	56.1	50.9	52.0	52.4	2.6	0.79	0.02
HR, beats/min	74	66	72	65	72	65	1.5	0.32	0.91
RR, breaths/min	27	26	22	23	22	23	0.6	0.01	0.09
RT, °C	38.3	38.1	38.2	38.1	38.2	38.1	0.1	0.74	0.54
Surface Temperature, °C
Rear legsc	25.1	25.8	23.4	22.6	23.2	23.8	0.48	0.01	0.10
Front legsc	28.6	28.7	26.6	26.7	26.6	26.8	0.36	0.01	0.97
Front–rear legs	3.64	2.83	3.30	4.05	3.74	2.94	0.34	0.27	0.01
Left side	31.9	32.4	30.4	31.5	30.6	30.7	0.35	0.01	0.18

^aPeriods lasted 35 days; fescue seed was fed for 14 days (d22–d35) of each period; n = 8 per treatment.

^bTrt, treatment; S–D, systolic–diastolic blood pressure.

^cSurface temperature of rear legs represents the plantar surface in the area of the large metatarsal bone; surface temperature of front legs represents the palmar surface in the area of the large metacarpal bone.