How do we achieve food security for a global population now over 7 billion people and trending towards 10 billion by 2050? This study of the global dairy industry examines how to balance our needs with those of animals and the environment. It scrutinises ruminant bovines' worrying exhaling of methane, a greenhouse gas which, fortunately, evidence shows can be reduced by adding seaweed to cattle feed. Are the multi-thousand-cow mega-dairies of the USA appropriate models for Africa and Asia's high-growth dairy regions, where so many women are smallholders? Is it ethical to keep cows in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), eating unnatural high-energy/low fibre diets when they prefer grazing pasture? Other issues include hormones for oestrus stimulation, and GMOs for milk yield, stressing cows' immune systems and drastically shortening longevity. This book offers multifaceted discussion of the central and ancillary issues relevant to dairying, and consumption of plant- and laboratory-based foods in the 21st century. No book to date offers such a comprehensive overview, linking ethics, environment, health and policy-making with in-depth coverage of the major dairy farming regions of the world.

This collection features five peer-reviewed literature reviews on sensor technologies in livestock monitoring. The first chapter considers the development of on-animal sensors as a means of monitoring an array of livestock species, as well as the challenges which arise with their deployment in commercial livestock management operations. The second chapter reviews the utilisation of wearable technologies to monitor the welfare of poultry, including accelerometers. The chapter also considers the effects of these sensors on bird welfare and behaviour. The third chapter provides a detailed overview of recent advances in techniques for monitoring dairy cow health and welfare. The chapter reviews the development of diagnostic tools and sensor technologies which enable automated, continuous monitoring of livestock. The fourth chapter reviews the potential of precision livestock farming (PLF) technology to monitor dairy cattle welfare in line with the Five Domains framework. The chapter explores how PLF can positively impact each of the five domains: nutrition, environment, health, behaviour and mental state. The final chapter reviews recent advances in technologies for monitoring key indicators of pig welfare by considering good feeding, good housing, good health and appropriate behaviour.

Beekeeping is about management, control and learning to understand the honeybee. It can also become a very enjoyable and sociable pastime - visiting others' hives and picking up vital hints and tips is all part of the fun - and farming and eating honey that your own bees have produced is a pure delight.Information is given on the basic tools and equipment needed for setting up a hive to detailed advice on when to harvest honey and honey-inspired recipes, from delicious cakes to beauty products. This is an invaluable guide for anyone thinking of keeping bees.

This collection features four peer-reviewed literature reviews on improving piglet welfare. The first chapter reviews the main welfare challenges faced during farrowing and lactation, including the occurrence of painful husbandry procedures, such as tooth resection, tail docking and castration. The chapter also highlights various mitigation strategies that can be implemented to optimise the welfare of both sows and piglets in the farrowing environment. The second chapter addresses some of the main welfare concerns that can arise during the weaning and nursery stage as a result of separation between piglet and sow and exposure to a new environment. The chapter also summarises the most important fields of environmental, nutritional and social stress and how these experiences can be mitigated with the correct strategies. The third chapter considers the demand for improved welfare and animal handling systems from governments, non-governmental organisations and consumers. The chapter reviews recent advancements in technology that have the potential to improve animal wellbeing, profitability and performance during the weaning period. The final chapter discusses the main etiological agents acting in the period of transition from weaning, the risk factors for their introduction and diffusion within the farm and the main measures available for their control.

Strategies for Successful Animal Shelters is the first book to assess the relationship between shelter traits, activities and critical outcome variables, such as live release or save rates. This book provides a data-based evaluation of shelter processes and practices with explicit recommendations for improved shelter activities. Using a survey of licensed animal shelters, case studies, and data on state inspections, complaints, and save rates, this book provides an assessment of the activities, processes, and procedures that are most likely to lead to positive outcomes for a variety of animal shelters. The book also contributes to community debate around animal sheltering and provides best practices, methods and means to assess local shelters to ensure the highest level of animal welfare. It is a valuable resource for animal shelter professionals and rescue groups, as well as students in disciplines such as animal science, animal welfare and shelter medicine.

Dog Behavior: Modern Science and Our Canine Companions provides readers with a better understanding of canine science, including evolutionary concepts, ethograms, brain structures and development, sensory perspectives, the science of emotions, social structure, and the natural history of the species. The book also analyzes relationships between humans and dogs and how the latter has evolved. Readers will find this to be an ideal resource for researchers and students in animal behavior, specifically focusing on dog behavior and human-canine relationships. In addition, veterinarians seeking further information on dog behavior and the social temperament of these companion animals will find this book to be informative.

'...individual chapters provide very thorough, up-to-date reviews of health and welfare of pigs during different stages of production...The health section does a good job of summarizing the current major disease challenges facing pig production...If you want up-to-date reviews on some of the most pressing welfare issues in different stages of production, there are some good chapters included.' Animal Welfare Pig meat is the most widely-consumed meat in the world. Previous growth in production has relied, in part, on more intensive systems. In meeting rising demand, these systems face challenges such as the ongoing threat of zoonotic diseases, the need to improve feed efficiency in the face of rising costs, the need to reduce the environmental impact of pig production and increasing concerns about animal welfare. This volume looks at animal health and welfare. Part 1 reviews the main diseases affecting pigs as well as ways of managing diseases and boosting pig immune function. Part 2 reviews what we know about pig behaviour and appropriate welfare standards. It also assesses the welfare of different groups of pigs, from gilts and sows to weaned piglets and finishing pigs, as well as transport, lairage and slaughter. With its distinguished editor and international team of expert authors, this will be a standard reference for researchers in swine science, producers, government and other organisations involved in supporting pig production. It is accompanied by two companion volumes which focus on safety, quality and sustainability as well as animal breeding and nutrition.

This is a book about proximate mechanisms. Although some theoreti cal structure is used to introduce the subject, the intent is to offer a comprehensive view of the mechanistic side of searching (or foraging) so as to balance the current emphasis of books on mathematical and functional models. It seems to me that the pendulum needs to swing back to studies of how animals behave, and that maybe in so doing models will become valuable again in driving experimentation. I have probably included too many examples in this book, and some are even presented in great detail. Hopefully, they provide a complete picture of the kind of animals used, the experimental setup, the kinds of data yielded, and how the data were analysed. I have done this in response to frustrating experiences of reading chapters in behavioural ecobgy books that provide insufficient information with which to evaluate an author's conclusion."

This book covers nearly all the aspects of duck rearing system with various duck genetic resources of India, their nutritional requirements, care management, diseases and prevention, slaughter, grading, packaging of meat, nutritional importance of meat & egg and integrated farming. To make this book more competent for farmers, enlisted certain drugs for treatment of different diseases of duck and vaccination schedule has also been included in the text. References have been included in this book to refer the interested reader for details understanding of duck rearing system. The language is kept simple and lucid for ease of understanding. This book will find right place in the hands of researchers, veterinary graduates, students of the animal sciences and farmers who are engaged in duck farming.

Retreat to the countryside with shepherdess Amanda Owens as she recounts stories from her life on the farm, of raising nine children and cooking beautiful, seasonal meals - complete with the recipes for you to enjoy at home. This edition of Celebrating the Seasons is updated with more heartwarming stories from the farm at Ravenseat. In the Sunday Times bestseller Celebrating the Seasons, the Yorkshire Shepherdess shares funny and charming stories about life with her family and their many four-legged charges and describes their activities at Ravenseat, from lambing and shearing in spring to haymaking in summer and feeding the flock in midwinter. She vividly evokes the famous Swaledale landscape, from the sweeping moors to rare wildflowers and elusive hares glimpsed in the field. Amanda lives in tune with nature, and her attitude to food is the same. She believes in using good, seasonal ingredients when it comes to feeding her family, and includes some of her favourite recipes here, from wild garlic lamb with hasselback potatoes to rhubarb and custard crumble cake and Yorkshire curd tart. The book also includes her Dalesman columns, published in book form for the first time and giving new insights into her life. As charming as Amanda herself, this book will delight everyone who has followed her adventures so far.

Livestock Ration Formulation for Dairy Cattle and Buffalo provides an interdisciplinary, integrative perspective and optimization on dairy cattle feed formulation problem solving. It helps dairy farmers by introducing them the right frequency and right amount of balanced diet to be fed to cattle's and buffaloes at different body condition so that their feeding cost should be decreased and there should be increase in income for dairy farmers, as they don't have enough knowledge of feeding practice. It helps animal nutritionist to work for dairy farmers which have very limited feed resources to fulfil nutrients requirement in terms of crude protein (CP), total digestible nutrient (TDN), calcium (Ca) and phosphorus (P) by developing a software programme to plan a balanced low budget diet. It includes the Linear and Goal programming model for non-pregnant dairy buffalo is been solved using Hybrid Real Coded Genetic Algorithm and the results are compared with Real Coded Genetic Algorithm (RGA) considering different versions like RGA without crossover, RGA without Mutation, RGA with crossover and mutation. These models can also be applied with other nutritional models like CNCPS, INRA. This book is a step forward in that direction to provide least cost diet formulation based on nutrient requirement of the cattle and buffalo, which is been calculated according to Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR, 2013) and NRC (2001) on dry matter basis, provides a clear and precise platform for other researcher in Animal Nutrition field which also give initial platform to build a software and android application to formulate least cost ration Based on data and algorithm used in this book, which helps Dairy farmers directly to feed balanced diet at cheap rate. Features: It is a good reference to local dairy farmers by introducing them to the right frequency and right amount of balanced diet to be fed to cattle and buffaloes at different production cycles. It will provide basic platform and some solutions to built-up software about cattle nutrition development and least cost formulation for end-user. It has several techniques for optimizing animal diet formulation but a good balance between coding/programming and animal nutrition is incorporated towards application of soft computing technique to improve the quality of the solution due to rigidity of the constraints.

The history of Science is replete with untold stories and this book is one of these accounts. The author shares a narrative of heredity, an active topic of inquiry long before Gregor Mendel - the father of genetics - planted his peas. One such interlude unfolded in Mendel's home city and involved the sheep breeder, Imre Festetics. He sought to improve wool and proposed important rules of heredity. Unfortunately, aspects of wool quality, now known to be polygenic, complicate interpretations of the work of Festetics and explain why it is neglected. The forebearers of Mendel never get the credit they deserve. Heredity Before Mendel resurrects Festetics, the grandfather of heredity. Key Features 1) Documents a vibrant community of scholars interested in heredity before Mendel 2) Highlights the work of Imre Festetics, the forgotten grandfather of genetics 3) Desribes political repression which stifled the nascent foundation of heredity research 4) Emphasizes the role sheep and wool played as the first model system of genetics 5) Challenges19th century taboos in Moravia leading to malicious rumors about the inbred royal House of Austria (Habsburgs).

The Franciscana Dolphin: On the Edge of Survival provides the most updated and comprehensive knowledge on the most endangered marine mammal in the Western South Atlantic Ocean. It synthesizes all available information on this dolphin species, also referred to as La Plata dolphin, ranging from taxonomy, evolution, diet, parasites and diseases, reproduction and growth, to genetic diversity and stock definition, distribution, abundance, behavior, as well as the threats and causes behind the dwindling population numbers. Written by international experts, this book explores aspects of the species' natural history and urgent problems of accidental mortality in fishing nets, contamination, and habitat loss. It offers the most current research and practices on rehabilitating debilitated animals and presents initiatives at the regional and international level for species conservation, including current and potential strategies related to marine protected areas and public policies. The Franciscana Dolphin: On the Edge of Survival is an important resource for researchers and practitioners in marine conservation, marine biology, and zoology, particularly those who seek to gain the most reputable information on vulnerable marine mammal species for conservation efforts. Policymakers and public officials involved in environmental protection and planning will also find this useful to combat similar threats with other dolphin species around the world

Haemonchus Contortus and Haemonchosis - Past, Present and Future Trends, the latest in the Advances in Parasitology series first published in 1963, contains comprehensive and up-to-date reviews on all areas of interest in contemporary parasitology. The series includes medical studies of parasites of major influence, such as Plasmodium falciparum and trypanosomes. The series also contains reviews of more traditional areas, such as zoology, taxonomy, and life history, which help to shape current thinking and applications. The 2014 impact factor is 6.226.

This volume offers a holistic understanding of the environmental and societal challenges that affect reindeer husbandry in Fennoscandia today. Reindeer husbandry is a livelihood with a long traditional heritage and cultural importance. Like many other pastoral societies, reindeer herders are confronted with significant challenges. Covering Norway, Sweden and Finland - three countries with many differences and similarities - this volume examines how reindeer husbandry is affected by and responds to global environmental change and resource extraction in boreal and arctic social-ecological systems. Beginning with an historical overview of reindeer husbandry, the volume analyses the realities of the present from different perspectives and disciplines. Genetics, behavioural ecology of reindeer, other forms of land use, pastoralists' norms and knowledge, bio-economy and governance structures all set the stage for the complex internal and externally imposed dynamics within reindeer husbandry. In-depth analyses are devoted to particularly urgent challenges, such as land-use conflicts, climate change and predation, identified as having a high potential to shape the future pathways of the pastoral identity and productivity. These futures, with their risks and opportunities, are explored in the final section, offering a synthesis of the comparative approach between the three countries that runs as a recurring theme through the book. With its richness and depth, this volume contributes significantly to the understanding of the substantial impacts on pastoralist communities in northernmost Europe today, while highlighting viable pathways to maintaining reindeer husbandry for the future. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of both the natural and social sciences who work on natural resource management, global environmental change, pastoralism, ecology, social-ecological systems, rangeland management and Indigenous studies. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution- Non Commercial- No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Efficient Livestock Handling: The Practical Application of Animal Welfare and Behavioral Science brings together the science-based disciplines of animal behavior and welfare to discuss how knowledge of one area (behavior) can be used to promote the other. Emphasis is on cattle and horses, but swine, sheep, and goats are also covered. Three major areas are included and integrated into a practical approach to working with the various species. Basic behavior as it applies to handling is discussed, with differences noted between species. The connections of behavior and handling are covered, and practical applications discussed, both with a liberal use of pictures and videos to bring the concepts to life.

Understanding local knowledge has become a central academic project among those interested in Africa and developing countries. In South Africa, land reform is gathering pace and African people hold an increasing proportion of the livestock in the country. Animal health has become a central issue for rural development. Yet African veterinary medical knowledge remains largely unrecorded. This book seeks to fill that gap. This book captures for the first time the diversity, as well as the limits, of a major sphere of local knowledge. Beinart and Brown argue that African approaches to animal health rest largely in environmental and nutritional explanations. They explore the widespread use of plants as well as biomedicines for healing. While rural populations remain concerned about supernatural threats, and many men think that women can harm their cattle, the authors challenge current ideas on the modernisation of witchcraft. They examine more ambient forms of supernatural danger expressed in little-known concepts such as mohato and umkhondo. They take the reader into the homesteads and kraals of rural black South Africans and engage with a key rural concern - vividly reporting the ideas of livestock owners. This is groundbreaking research which will have important implications for analyses of local knowledge more generally as well as effective state interventions and animal treatments in South Africa.

Beekeeping's popularity as a hobby continues to skyrocket. Beekeeper's Lab gives you 52 bee-inspired labs to do all year long, and are accessible enough to share with the family. Fill the year ahead with weekly activities from around and about the hive, including art projects, recipes, experiments, garden activities, and more! Bees are important to local ecosystems, now more than ever. Whether you're already a beekeeper, or are still considering getting your first hive, Beekeeper'sLab has projects perfect for you. This extensive guide book features 52 beekeeping and hive-inspired projects to keep you involved with your bees and hive all year long. The tutorials are brief, accomplishable, rewarding, and best of all, they are presented in a friendly lab-style format. Try a new technique each week with how-tos and sidebars with tips that are perfect for including the whole family. Beekeeping is a fun hobby for the whole family to enjoy, plus, who doesn't want their own supply of honey?

Queen Victoria was obsessed with it. Socrates' last words were about it. Charles Darwin and Louis Pasteur made their scientific breakthroughs using it. Hailed as a messenger of the gods, powerful sex symbol, gambling aid, all-purpose medicine and handy research tool, the humble chicken has been also cast as the epitome of evil, and the star of the world's most famous joke. Beginning with the recent discovery, that the chicken's unlikely ancestor is the T. Rex, How the Chicken Crossed the World tracks the chicken from its original domestication in the jungles of Southeast Asia some 10,000 years ago to today's Western societies, where it became the most engineered of animals, to the uncertain future of what is now humanity's single most important source of protein. In a masterful combination of historical sleuthing and journalistic exploration on four continents, Lawler reframes the way we feel and think about all domesticated animals and even nature itself.

India imposes stringent criminal penalties, including life imprisonment in some states, for cow slaughter, based on a Hindu ethic of revering the cow as sacred. And yet India is among the world's leading producers of beef, leather, and milk, industries sustained by the mass slaughter of bovines. What is behind this seeming contradiction? What do bovines, deemed holy in Hinduism, experience in the Indian milk and beef industries? Yamini Narayanan asks and answers these questions, introducing cows and buffaloes as key subjects in India's cow protectionism, rather than their treatment hitherto as mere objects of political analysis. Emphasizing human–animal hierarchical relations, Narayanan argues that the Hindu framing of the cow as "mother" is one of human domination, wherein bovine motherhood is simultaneously capitalized for dairy production and weaponized by right-wing Hindu nationalists to violently oppress Muslims and Dalits. Using ethnographic and empirical data gathered across India, this book reveals the harms caused to buffaloes, cows, bulls, and calves in dairying, and the exploitation required of the diverse, racialized labor throughout India's dairy production continuum to obscure such violence. Ultimately, Narayanan traces how the unraveling of human domination and exploitation of farmed animals is integral to progressive multispecies democratic politics, speculating on the real possibility of a post-dairy society, based on vegan agricultural policies for livelihoods and food security.

This collection features five peer-reviewed reviews on ensuring the welfare of laying hens. The first chapter highlights the key welfare issues in poultry housing and management, focussing on the use of conventional cages to house laying hens. The chapter then explores the emergence of enriched cages and cage-free housing, as well as the benefits and risks of each system on bird health and welfare. The second chapter reviews the range of welfare issues affecting free range laying hens. The chapter also highlights the need to improve current understanding of how laying hens behave in free range systems to be able to adequately meet their health and welfare needs. The third chapter discusses the use of beak trimming methods, as well as the welfare concerns that arise as a result of their use. The chapter highlights alternative strategies to reduce the need for these practices which are known to incur acute pain. The fourth chapter reviews the impact of housing and management systems on the skeletal and cognitive development of laying hens. It discusses how nutrition and housing can be optimised to reduce the occurrence of bone health issues. The final chapter reviews current research on the genetics of behavioural traits in poultry, focussing on how breeding can be optimised to reduce aggressive behaviour in laying hens.

Reproductive Biology of the Crocodylia is based on over 40 years of research on global crocodiles, alligators and caimans. It brings together data and information previously scattered across publications to synthesize knowledge on the history, ecology, physiology and anatomy of crocodilians. The book provides a comprehensive look at the physiology, current taxonomy, ecology and sexual maturity factors of these reptiles. It then delves into the anatomy and cycles of both male and female reproduction systems, including nesting and incubation, temperature-dependent sex determination, and sex ratios across various species populations. Finally, the book focuses on conservation efforts to protect the reproductive cycle, taking factors such as pollution, climate change, and human disruption into consideration. It is an ideal resource for wildlife biologists and herpetologists seeking up-to-date and thorough research data on conservation efforts. It will also be helpful for exotic animal veterinarians, zookeepers, and alligator or crocodile farmers.