This book is the third in a set of four providing a series on controlled reproduction in farm animals. The aim of the series is to provide a general review of the literature dealing with the different ways in which reproduction in the major farm mammals can be controlled and manipulated. The four volumes are effectively an expanded and new edition of a previous work, "Controlled Breeding in Farm Animals" (Pergamon Press, 1983). However, the literature on this subject has expanded so rapidly since the time of the earlier volume, that it is now thought appropriate to publish it in four separate volumes. Buffaloes, goats, deer and camelids have been added to the species covered by the series compared to the previous book. All volumes provide comprehensive reference lists and are fully up-to-date. This third volume focuses on pigs. It will appeal to reproductive physiologists and workers in animal production, animal breeding and veterinary medicine.

This book provides a review of the current state of knowledge on all aspects of sheep nutrition. The main emphasis is on sheep grazing in systems that range from intensively utilized sown pastures to extensive rangelands.

Quaggas were beautiful pony-sized zebras in southern Africa that had fewer stripes on their bodies and legs, and a browner body coloration than other zebras. Indigenous people hunted quaggas, portrayed them in rock art, and told stories about them. Settlers used quaggas to pull wagons and to protect livestock against predators. Taken to Europe, they were admired, exhibited, harnessed to carriages, illustrated by famous artists and written about by scientists. Excessive hunting led to quaggas' extinction in the 1880s but DNA from museum specimens showed rebreeding was feasible and now zebras resembling quaggas live in their former habitats. This rebreeding is compared with other de-extinction and rewilding ventures and its appropriateness discussed against the backdrop of conservation challenges-including those facing other zebras. In an Anthropocene of species extinction, climate change and habitat loss which organisms and habitats should be saved, and should attempts be made to restore extinct species?

Pressures to maximize the use of forages in ruminant diets have renewed interest in fast, inexpensive methods for the estimation of their nutritional value. As a result, a wide variety of physio-chemical procedures have been investigated for this purpose. This book addresses the status of these procedures, and their potential and limitations. It covers such topics as: the importance of forage evaluation for man and animal; estimating the energy and protein value of forages; physio-chemical approaches; and minerals, antinutritive and other factors.

Their natural beauty, exceptional variety and unique biology make birds (Aves) one of the most fascinating groups of animals. They are also of great importance to humans as food and as experimental subjects that have catalyzed significant advances in many areas of biological research. Central to our ability to maintain and develop these resources is a thorough understanding of avian nutrition. This book presents, uniquely, all aspects of our current knowledge, drawn from such diverse disciplines as physiological ecology, poultry production, zoo biology and biomedical science. The physical and biochemical processes of digestion, the metabolic functions of nutrients and the diversity of evolutionary adaptations required to accommodate very different foodstuffs are examined in depth. Emphasis is placed on the quantitative nature of nutrition and the practical consequences for the dietary requirements of captive and wild avian populations throughout their life cycle. This book is key reading for advanced students of animal nutrition and poultry science and for research ornithologists. It will also be valuable for practicing nutritionists working with farmed, pet, zoo or wild birds and represents an essential purchase for libraries of animal science, veterinary medicine and ornithology.

Sustainable and Environmentally Friendly Dairy Farms presents an innovative environmental proposal. While chiefly focusing on dairy farms, the environmental solution it describes is applicable to the entire livestock sector. The book is divided into five chapters, the first of which addresses the carbon footprint of dairy farms. Chapter two provides an overview of the animal production system, focusing on the physiology of the ruminant stomach and the greenhouse gases emitted by dairy cows. In turn, the third chapter covers dairy farm systems, explaining both intensive and extensive husbandry systems. The book's final two chapters present the-state-of-art in CO2 capture, and describe a new and innovative CO2-RFP strategy. Given its scope, the book will be of interest to chemists, biologists, biotechnologists, and researchers active in agriculture and food-related areas, as well as those working in the food and dairy industry.

With nearly every supermarket now featuring an "organic" section, the demand for organically grown meat and dairy products has risen rapidly in recent years. Small farmers have taken note, and many more beginners are considering cattle as a viable farm commodity. Getting Started with Beef & Dairy Cattle is the essential handbook for this growing audience.
Heather Smith Thomas, a lifelong cattle rancher and author of several previous books for more experienced farmers, offers a succinct layperson's guide to the basics of raising a small herd of cattle, whether for meat or dairy products. She outlines organic and natural farming methods and covers all the information needed to get started and be successful.
Getting Started with Beef & Dairy Cattle encourages new and beginning farmers to start small, and start right. Thomas explains as simply as possible the basics of selecting and raising a calf, along with feeding, shelter, and care guidelines. She also covers breeding and calving, as well as tips for managing a herd throughout the seasons. There's basic health care information for preventing disease and addressing common ailments. For those raising beef cattle, Thomas offers guidelines for butchering; for those raising dairy cattle, there are step-by-step guidelines on milking.
With a whole new generation returning to the farm who don't have a family history of farming, Getting Started with Beef & Dairy Cattleis a much-needed resource. Heather Smith Thomas has devoted her life to passing on the knowledge, understanding, and attitude necessary to become a successful farmer.

Legumes have diverse uses and roles in agriculture and environmental protection. They are particularly important in the tropics for a number of reasons. Browse or tree species are renowned for their drought resistance and their role in the prevention of desertification. All legumes can fix atmospheric nitrogen, thus reducing the cost of fertilizers to farmers who may not be able to afford them. While tropical grasses are often of poor nutritive value, both browse and pasture legumes may have a higher protein content, palatability and digestibility. This volume focuses on the use of tropical browse, pasture and grain legumes in animal nutrition. It is written by leading authorities from the UK, Australia, India and Malaysia.

Written by leading researchers from the USA, Canada and Europe, this is an essential reference tool for researchers and advanced students in animal nutrition. Farm livestock have evolved digestive systems that are capable of digesting fibrous materials and by-products unsuited for man. Throughout the world, production from farm livestock is concerned with providing food and clothing of animal origin for man. Animal production science underpins this goal and provides the scientific basis for livestock management practices. Feed evaluation concerns the use of methods to describe animal feedstuffs with respect to their ability to sustain different types and levels of animal performance. The main themes of the book are methods of feed evaluation, current feeding systems, and mechanistic mathematical modeling. No other title brings together methods, systems and models under one cover.

The science of animal production has recently become headline news. The cloning of sheep, the use of pig xenotransplants and bovine somatotrophin, as well as mad-cow disease, are all examples of how livestock production is related to food safety, human health, ethics and quality of life. The relationship between intensive developed-world animal production and third world development also raises ethical issues. These are just some of the topics addressed in this book, which has its origin in a special symposium held at the VIII World Congress on Animal Production held in June 1998 in Korea. Additional chapters have been specially commissioned for inclusion in the book.

In order to meet increasing global demand for meat and animal by-products increasingly intensive animal production is necessary. Creating a sustainable system in animal agriculture that works in different production environments is a major challenge for animal scientists. This book draws together themes on sustainability that have emerged as the most pressing in recent years. Addressing practical topics such as air quality, manure management, animal feeds, production efficiency, environmental sustainability, biotechnology issues, animal welfare concerns, societal impacts and an analysis of the data used to assess the economic sustainability of farms.

This book is the first in a set of four providing a series on controlled reproduction in farm animals. The aim of the series is to provide a general review of the literature dealing with the different ways in which reproduction in the major farm mammals can be controlled and manipulated. The four volumes are effectively an expanded and new edition of a previous work, "Controlled Breeding in Farm Animals" (Pergamon Press, 1983). However, the literature on this subject has expanded so rapidly since the time of the earlier volume, that it is now thought appropriate to published it in four separate volumes. Buffaloes, goats, deer and camelids have been added to the species covered by the series compared to the previous book. All volumes provide comprehensive reference lists and are fully up-to-date. This first volume focuses on cattle and buffaloes. It will appeal to reproductive physiologists and workers in animal production, animal breeding and veterinary medicine.

This book is the second in a set of four providing a series on controlled reproduction in farm animals. The aim of the series is to provide a general review of the literature dealing with the different ways in which reproduction in the major farm mammals can be controlled and manipulated. The four volumes are effectively an expanded and new edition of a previous work, "Controlled Breeding in Farm Animals" (Pergamon Press, 1983). However, the literature on this subject has expanded so rapidly since the time of the earlier volume, that it is now thought appropriate to publish it in four separate volumes. Buffaloes, goats, deer and camelids have been added to the species covered by the series compared to the previous book. All volumes provide comprehensive reference lists and are fully up-to-date. This second volume focuses on sheep and goats. It will appeal to reproductive physiologists and workers in animal production, animal breeding and veterinary medicine.

This report is a comprehensive review of published information on the body composition and digestive physiology of temperate zone goats, the composition of their products, meat, milk and fiber, their voluntary feed intake, and their associated energy, protein, mineral and vitamin requirements. The systematic approach is similar to that of earlier reviews of ruminant nutrient requirements published by the Agricultural Research Council in 1980 and 1984, which are factorial in nature. In particular the energy and protein requirements are expressed in terms of Metabolisable Energy (ARC 1980, AFRC 1990) and Metabolisable Protein (AFRC1992), using the models for cattle and sheep as appropriate. The requirements for calcium and phosphorus have been calculated utilizing the factors specified in a separate AFRC report published in 1991. The report also identifies areas where there is a lack of research data specific to goats, recourse having to be made to published data for sheep (particularly for voluntary feed intake and the nutrient requirements of pregnancy) or cattle, as most appropriate. The review has 49 tables covering all aspects of the subject, and is fully referenced. It represents an authoritative review for advanced students, research workers and advisors in animal nutrition.

In recent years there has been an increasing interest in the topic of farm animal behaviour. This is partly an academic interest on the part of behavioural and animal scientists, but also stems from the more applied aspects of the subject as it relates to animal welfare. It is also now better appreciated that behaviour and welfare of animals have a significant impact on health and production. This book provides a thorough review of our knowledge of cattle behaviour and how this can contribute to improve the care, management and well-being of cattle. Examples are drawn from around the world, and while there is some emphasis on dairy cattle, mention is made of beef, dual-purpose or draught cattle where appropriate. All of the key topics such as social, reproductive and feeding behaviour are covered with thorough reviews of the research literature. The book represents a valuable work for advanced students and research workers in animal, dairy and veterinary sciences, as well as zoologists and psychologists in applied ethology.

Major changes have recently taken place in the value attached to components of milk. Although approximately half the energy in milk is contained in fat, fat is rapidly decreasing in value relative to protein. This has come about because of the increased availability of competitively-priced, plant-derived edible oils and because of the perceived health problems associated with animal fat in the human diet. Such changes have major implications for the dairy sector, particularly in developed countries. Against this background, this book presents a timely review of developments in milk production and consumption, of changes in milk component values, and of the opportunities that biotechnology provides to alter the composition of and add value to milk on the farm. The subject coverage is very broad, ranging from nutritional aspects of pastures and forages, to rumen microbiology, genetics and reproductive technologies, milk biochemistry and environmental implications. It is based on a conference held in Wellington, New Zealand, in February 1996, and sponsored by the OECD and AgResearch. Contributors include leading research workers from North America, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. It provides an invaluable overview of the subject, suitable as a reference book for advanced students, researchers and advisers in dairy science as well as related disciplines such as grassland, nutritional and food sciences.

This open access book provides the first critical history of the controversy over whether to cull wild badgers to control the spread of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in British cattle. This question has plagued several professional generations of politicians, policymakers, experts and campaigners since the early 1970s. Questions of what is known, who knows, who cares, who to trust and what to do about this complex problem have been the source of scientific, policy, and increasingly vociferous public debate ever since. This book integrates contemporary history, science and technology studies, human-animal relations, and policy research to conduct a cross-cutting analysis. It explores the worldviews of those involved with animal health, disease ecology and badger protection between the 1970s and 1990s, before reintegrating them to investigate the recent public polarisation of the controversy. Finally it asks how we might move beyond the current impasse.

This practical research text provides an invaluable resource for all animal and veterinary scientists designing, analysing and interpreting results from nutrition and feed experiments in pigs and poultry. The emphasis throughout is on practical aspects of designing nutrition experiments. The book builds on the basics and proceeds to describe the limitations of experiment design involving different ingredients. It goes on to describe the characterization of experimental diets including ingredient selection, composition and the minimum proximate analysis required. The text details measurements and the tools available for understanding diverse data sets, data analysis and eventual publication of the research. This fully balanced and extensively referenced, yet practical, text is an invaluable resource to all animal, veterinary and biomedical scientists involved in the designing of nutrition experiments in pigs and poultry, and the publication of their research.

This book describes the biological basis of reproduction in poultry and places this information in the context of poultry production. The author has collated and integrated recent information from a variety of sources in order to highlight the principles of the reproductive biology of poultry. This is achieved through a well-illustrated and tabulated text which emphasizes integration rather than comprehensive literature citations. The book begins by considering the egg, proceeds to a brief description of embryonic and chick development as they relate to poultry production, and describes the physiological processes that lead to formation of the fertile egg. It concludes with a discussion of the relationship between measurements of reproductive success that are commonly used in the poultry industry and their ability to reflect the physiological processes that contribute to successful reproduction. The book is aimed at advanced undergraduates or graduate students studying animal reproduction or agriculture, as well as scientists working in the poultry industry.

The South African government has prioritized a reduction of poverty and increased food security in rural parts of South Africa through agrarian transformation. As the bearers and beneficiaries of rural development initiatives, smallholder farmers, including those keeping livestock, loom large in this arena. Likewise, on international development agendas steered by bodies such as the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), smallholders are prioritized as the engines of national economies. This book, based on a pilot study of two livestock keeping communities along the Mpumalanga-Limpopo border, explores smallholder households in order to paint a picture of the challenges faced by smallholder livestock farmers, the practices and knowledge of primary animal healthcare (PAHC) among these farmers, relationships between the state and the smallholders, gendered issues, and the relationship between poor socioeconomic conditions and the keeping of livestock. This book opens up a variety of research and policy questions that encourage further exploration and study.

More and more people are deciding to raise their own meat, from farmers to homesteaders, even chefs. This is the book that shows them exactly how to handle the slaughter and butchering of their livestock in a humane and sustainable way. With step-by-step photographs of the farm to table process, it is destined to be the bible on the topic. It begins with general information about food safety, freezing and packaging, tools and equipment, butchering methods, and pre-slaughter conditions before moving into the specifics of slaughtering and butchering cattle. It includes detailed descriptions of specialty cuts and how to make them.

From addled to wind egg, crossed beak to zygote, the terminology of everything chicken is demystified in "The Chicken Encyclopedia", a comprehensive A-to-Z reference volume presented in a friendly, highly illustrated format. Whether it's the difference between wry tail, split tail, and gamy tail; the meaning of hen feathered, forced molt, or quill feather; the characteristics of droopy wing; the content of granite grit; or the translation of a chicken's alarm call, here are all the answers to every chicken question and quandary, from the practical to the curious. The in-depth entries go beyond simple definitions to offer solutions to problems, instructions for tasks from catching a chicken to candling an egg, and historical origins of poultry-related terms. The fascinating lore behind breeds such as the Dutch Bantam and the Egyptian Fayoumi are detailed, as well as the reasons for behaviours from beak beating to head shaking.

Contains a selection of White Papers, commissioned to better inform the exploration of cattle welfare. These are prepared by notable experts in their field, to help provide factual context around selected topics that impact cattle welfare and production systems. Covers all aspects of cattle use in an accessible style, making this a must have volume for anyone interested in cattle welfare or cattle medicine. Provides an in-depth picture of the distinctive beef and dairy cattle welfare practices and issues, covering topics such as behavior, breeding and genetic manipulation, nutrition and feeding, housing and management, health and disease, and transport and slaughter. Written by acknowledged leaders in animal science, veterinary science, philosophy and animal welfare, presenting a truly multidisciplinary perspective on cattle welfare. Includes a section on understanding and managing animal welfare in both beef and dairy cattle, discussing how cattle perceive the world, animal handling and pain mitigation, and how to assure that the cows have a reasonably good life. The Welfare of Cattle offers an accurate, detailed account of the ethical and welfare concerns related to the human use of cattle. There is currently no significant book dealing with the welfare of cows, animals often seen as archetypal paradigms of 'farm animals'. Covering both beef and dairy cattle, the expert authors provide in-depth information on the husbandry roots of traditional agriculture, the replacement of this system of stewardship by an industrial model, and the resulting welfare challenges associated with industrial agriculture: feedlots, highly industrialized dairies, and slaughterhouses killing huge numbers of animals who have been transported great distances. This important book explores in detail the ways in which people who are providing care for cattle can take their first step, or their next step, toward enhancing the welfare of these animals. An extra chapter (online only) is available in the 'Downloads' tab on the left: Dairy Nutrition, by Michael Gamroth

This Brief explains and discusses honey and its production from a chemical perspective. It outlines why honey is a special and unique food, being produced by bees from the nectar of plants or from secretions of living parts of plants. Although glucose and fructose are the main constituents of honey, its overall composition is far from being simple or uniform: other substances such as organic acids, enzymes, or minerals are found in varying amounts. In this Brief, the author addresses the factors that influence the composition of the honey as well as the consequences that the composition has on properties such as color, crystallization, density, viscosity, or the refractive index. This Brief also introduces some of the most commonly used quality parameters for the determination of ageing and/or overheating: 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) and diastase. Other recently proposed constituents for quality parameters are also mentioned, e.g. 1,2 dicarbonyl compounds (3 deoxyglucosone, methylglyoxal, glyoxal) and furosine, also named 2-furoylmethyl lysine.