We have designed a bovine metabolism-related microarray chip containing known genes with well-studied functional properties. Using publicly available genomic internet database resources provided by NCBI, TIGR, KEGG and BioCarta, a set of bovine gene sequences was compiled to focus on research in metabolism. Multiple oligonucleotide probes for each gene were designed for spotting on glass slides at sufficient replication to facilitate accurate detection of changes in gene expression. By looking at known genes rather than expressed sequence tags, we hope to gain a better understanding of metabolism and its regulation in cattle.