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.




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.




Nutrition and Lactation in the Dairy Cow


Book Description

Nutrition and Lactation in the Dairy Cow is the proceedings of the 46th University of Nottingham Easter School in Agricultural Science. Said symposium was concerned with the significant advances in the field of nutrition and lactation in the dairy cow. The book is divided in five parts. Part I deals with the principles behind nutrition and lactation of cows. Part II discusses the cow's nutrient interactions; responses to nutrients that yield protein and energy; and the influence of nutrient balance and milk yields. Part III tackles the efficiency of energy utilization in cows and its relation to milk production. Part IV talks about food intake of cows and the factors that affect it, while Part V deals with the different feeding systems for cows. The text is recommended for those involved in raising cows and dairy production, especially those who would like to know more and make studies about the relationship of nutrition and lactation of cows.




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.




Principles of Animal Nutrition


Book Description

Animals are biological transformers of dietary matter and energy to produce high-quality foods and wools for human consumption and use. Mammals, birds, fish, and shrimp require nutrients to survive, grow, develop, and reproduce. As an interesting, dynamic, and challenging discipline in biological sciences, animal nutrition spans an immense range from chemistry, biochemistry, anatomy and physiology to reproduction, immunology, pathology, and cell biology. Thus, nutrition is a foundational subject in livestock, poultry and fish production, as well as the rearing and health of companion animals. This book entitled Principles of Animal Nutrition consists of 13 chapters. Recent advances in biochemistry, physiology and anatomy provide the foundation to understand how nutrients are utilized by ruminants and non-ruminants. The text begins with an overview of the physiological and biochemical bases of animal nutrition, followed by a detailed description of chemical properties of carbohydrates, lipids, protein, and amino acids. It advances to the coverage of the digestion, absorption, transport, and metabolism of macronutrients, energy, vitamins, and minerals in animals. To integrate the basic knowledge of nutrition with practical animal feeding, the book continues with discussion on nutritional requirements of animals for maintenance and production, as well as the regulation of food intake by animals. Finally, the book closes with feed additives, including those used to enhance animal growth and survival, improve feed efficiency for protein production, and replace feed antibiotics. While the classical and modern concepts of animal nutrition are emphasized throughout the book, every effort has been made to include the most recent progress in this ever-expanding field, so that readers in various biological disciplines can integrate biochemistry and physiology with nutrition, health, and disease in mammals, birds, and other animal species (e.g., fish and shrimp). All chapters clearly provide the essential literature related to the principles of animal nutrition, which should be useful for academic researchers, practitioners, beginners, and government policy makers. This book is an excellent reference for professionals and a comprehensive textbook for senior undergraduate and graduate students in animal science, biochemistry, biomedicine, biology, food science, nutrition, veterinary medicine, and related fields.




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.




Feedstuff Evaluation


Book Description

Feedstuff Evaluation contains the proceedings of the 50th University of Nottingham Easter School in Agricultural Sciences, held at Sutton Bonington in July 1989. The book presents papers discussing a wide range of topics on the accurate evaluation of feedstuffs for livestock. Initially, systems of expressing the nutritive value of feeds are considered. Modifications to feeding value as influenced by animal factors including intake and palatability are discussed. Specific dietary ingredients, being plant polysaccharides, fats, minerals and vitamins are detailed. Prediction of the nutritive value of compound feeds and individual feeds through classical wet chemistry and the more recent NIR is assuming considerable importance in the rapid evaluation of diets. Associated with these developments is an appreciation of the relevance of both inter- and intra-laboratory variation in determinations. Finally, the need to collate information into an interactive data-base is being actively pursued. It is evident that safety of animal feeds is becoming an increasingly topical issue and the last session considered the relevance of naturally-occurring toxic factors, residues, mycotoxins and, finally, animal pathogens. Veterinarians, farmers, farm administrators, and those involved in every aspect of nutrient supply to animals will find the compendium very insightful and informative.