The Voluntary Food Intake of Farm Animals


Book Description

The Voluntary Food Intake of Farm Animals offers a wide discussion on food intake among farm animals. The book presents various studies, facts, details, and theories that are relevant to the subject. The first chapter begins by explaining the basic definition and significance of voluntary food intake. This topic is followed by discussions on meal patterns, the main features of eating, and the similarities between species. The next chapter explores theories about the food intake control, which are divided into two types: single-factor theories and multiple-factor theories. In Chapter 3, the discussion is on the food's pathway, including elaborations on the various receptors. Chapter 4 considers the central nervous system's involvement in the voluntary food intake and the energy balance regulation. The next couple of chapters highlight the possible reasons that affect food intake; among them are pregnancy, fattening, physical growths, and the environment. In the book's remaining chapters, the discussion revolves around grass intake and the prediction and manipulation of voluntary food intake. The book serves as a valuable reference for undergraduates and postgraduates of biology and its related fields.







Voluntary Food Intake and Diet Selection in Farm Animals


Book Description

This book contains an up to date and more focused examination of developments in the understanding of voluntary food intake and new ideas and studies related to diet selection. New chapters are introduced and old ones are rewritten and reorganized in a more readable style by using extensive reference to books and reviews. The book is intended for animal nutritionists, animal scientists, farm owners and managers, veterinarians and students.




Forage in Ruminant Nutrition


Book Description

Forage in Ruminant Nutrition is the 12th text in a series of books about animal feeing and nutrition. The series is intended to keep readers updated on the developments occurring in these fields. As it is apparent that ruminant animals are important throughout the world because of the meat and milk they produce, knowledge about the feeds available to ruminants must also be considered for increased production and efficiency. This text provides information that readers will find considerably invaluable about forage feeds, such as grass, legumes, hay, and straw. The book is composed of 16 chapters that feature the following concepts of ruminant forage feeding: • composition of ruminant products and the nutrients required for maintenance and reproduction; • energy and nutrient available in forage: calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, sodium, copper, iodine, zinc, manganese, selenium, and cobalt; • intake of forage by housed ruminants; • grazing; • forage digestibility; • protein in ruminant nutrition; • protein and other nutrient deficiencies. This volume will be an invaluable reference for students and professionals in agricultural chemistry and grassland and animal husbandry researches.




Regulation of Feed Intake


Book Description

Natural feeding, feeding modes, preferences and behaviour; Physiological regulation of feed intake: genetic, metabolic, hormonal and neural regulations; Environmental factors and feed intake: feeding behaviour, feed choice and feeding habits.




Nutritional Ecology of the Ruminant


Book Description

This monumental text-reference places in clear persepctive the importance of nutritional assessments to the ecology and biology of ruminants and other nonruminant herbivorous mammals. Now extensively revised and significantly expanded, it reflects the changes and growth in ruminant nutrition and related ecology since 1982. Among the subjects Peter J. Van Soest covers are nutritional constraints, mineral nutrition, rumen fermentation, microbial ecology, utilization of fibrous carbohydrates, application of ruminant precepts to fermentive digestion in nonruminants, as well as taxonomy, evolution, nonruminant competitors, gastrointestinal anatomies, feeding behavior, and problems fo animal size. He also discusses methods of evaluation, nutritive value, physical struture and chemical composition of feeds, forages, and broses, the effects of lignification, and ecology of plant self-protection, in addition to metabolism of energy, protein, lipids, control of feed intake, mathematical models of animal function, digestive flow, and net energy. Van Soest has introduced a number of changes in this edition, including new illustrations and tables. He places nutritional studies in historical context to show not only the effectiveness of nutritional approaches but also why nutrition is of fundamental importance to issues of world conservation. He has extended precepts of ruminant nutritional ecology to such distant adaptations as the giant panda and streamlined conceptual issues in a clearer logical progression, with emphasis on mechanistic causal interrelationships. Peter J. Van Soest is Professor of Animal Nutrition in the Department of Animal Science and the Division of Nutritional Sciences at the New York State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University.




Predicting Feed Intake of Food-Producing Animals


Book Description

How much do animals eat? Why do eating patterns change? How do physiological, dietary, and environmental factors affect feed intake? This volume, a comprehensive overview of the latest animal feed intake research, answers these questions with detailed information about the feeding patterns of fishes, pigs, poultry, dairy cows, beef cattle, and sheep. Equations for calculating predicted feed intake are presented for each animal and are accompanied by charts, graphs, and tables.




Harvested Forages


Book Description

Harvested Forages deals with the subject of food for domestic animal feeding. Such food is called "forage" and includes things like alfalfa and other plants usually referred to as "hay." Topics include the ways that this forage is produced, how it is harvested, and ways that it should be stored. Other issues that are dealt with include various criteria and measurement procedures for assessing forage nutritive quality, potential health hazards associated with particular plants and plant toxins, and various issues of plant growth, pest control, and soil fertility--among other topics. This book is essential for any institution with a strong program in range sciences, animal sciences, animal feeding and nutrition, and related programs. - Synthesizes and summarizes a vast and widely dispersed literature in animal science - Serves as a reference for managers of harvested forages as well as all those involved with the forage production industry




Farm Animal Metabolism and Nutrition


Book Description

This book presents specially commissioned reviews of key topics in farm animal metabolism and nutrition, such as repartitioning agents, near infrared reflectance spectroscopy and digestibility and metabolisable energy assays, where major advances have recently been made or which continue to represent issues of significance for students and researchers. Authors include leading researchers from Europe, North America and Australia.




The Use of Drugs in Food Animals


Book Description

The use of drugs in food animal production has resulted in benefits throughout the food industry; however, their use has also raised public health safety concerns. The Use of Drugs in Food Animals provides an overview of why and how drugs are used in the major food-producing animal industriesâ€"poultry, dairy, beef, swine, and aquaculture. The volume discusses the prevalence of human pathogens in foods of animal origin. It also addresses the transfer of resistance in animal microbes to human pathogens and the resulting risk of human disease. The committee offers analysis and insight into these areas: Monitoring of drug residues. The book provides a brief overview of how the FDA and USDA monitor drug residues in foods of animal origin and describes quality assurance programs initiated by the poultry, dairy, beef, and swine industries. Antibiotic resistance. The committee reports what is known about this controversial problem and its potential effect on human health. The volume also looks at how drug use may be minimized with new approaches in genetics, nutrition, and animal management.