Air quality has a direct influence on health, welfare and production performance of livestock as the high concentrations of noxious gases, dust and airborne microorganisms are likely to reduce production efficiency and the general welfare of farm animals. Long term exposure to particulates in livestock buildings might also affect the respiratory health of farm workers. Dust in animal buildings contains many biologically active substances such as bacteria, fungi, endotoxins and residues of antibiotics (as a result of veterinary treatments) that are suspected to be hazardous to human health. Furthermore, air pollutants emitted from livestock buildings can reduce air, water and soil quality and can potentially undermine the health of nearby residents. Airborne emissions include ammonia, methane, nitrous oxide, particulates like dust and microorganisms. In addition, other potentially harmful substances such as heavy metals, antibiotic residues and components of disinfectants might be also emitted from livestock building that are potentially damaging to ecosystems. In this book, key aspects of agricultural air quality, such as monitoring, managing and reducing airborne pollutants in and around livestock facilities are reviewed. Features: addressing the raising awareness of the importance of optimal health and welfare for lifestock species with contributions from international specialists and researchers providing up-to-date information for professionals involved in modern animal producti This book will be useful for farming professionals, academics, students, policy makers, business leaders, regulatory bodies and agricultural consultants.

This book is an officially authorised advisory manual that implements the recommendations on the energy and protein requirements of cattle, sheep and goats made by the AFRC Technical Committee on Responses to Nutrients (TCORN) since its establishment in 1982. TCORN has produced a series of numbered reports including No. 5 in 1990 on 'Nutrient Requirements on Ruminant Animals: Energy' and in 1992, No. 9 'Nutrient Requirements of Ruminant Animals: Protein'. The former recommended, with only minor modifications, the adoption of the AFRC's 1980 Technical Review's full recommendations on energy requirements of ruminants, while the latter recommended the adoption of a protein system based on Metabolisable Protein as the unit. Opportunity has been taken to include material from TCORN Report No. 8, 1991 on the 'Voluntary Intake of Silage by Cattle' and from an unpublished TCORN Report on the 'Nutrition of Goats'. The current volume presents these recommendations in a practical form designed for use by advisors, farmers, lecturers, research workers and students concerned with the nutrition of ruminant animals. The manual includes 45 tables of requirements (incorporating agreed safety margins) and 29 example diets.

AS SEEN ON BBC TWO'S HIT TV-SHOW 'THIS FARMING LIFE' 'A heartwarming tale of life on the land' Alan Titchmarsh 'There's love and loss, challenge and adversity, but above all it's warm, insightful and inspiring' Helen Skelton 'Will inspire any reader to look at the countryside - and all those who work there - with newfound appreciation' Jimmy Doherty 'Uplifting, charming and beautifully written' Adam Henson Emma Gray was just twenty-three when she moved to an isolated farm in Northumberland, becoming Britain's youngest solo shepherdess. In the seasons that followed, Emma fell in love with its rolling fields, surrounding forest and sturdy farmhouse, tending her sheep and training her dogs - and even found romance. But when Emma finds herself suddenly alone again, heartbroken and recovering from a serious accident, she wonders if her isolated existence is still such a sensible idea. Even if she recovers, how could she make a proper living on Fallowlees Farm? In her heartwarming book, Emma tells the story of how she picked herself up and expanded her cattle herd, added more horses to her menagerie, and became one of the country's most successful breeders and trainers of Border Collies - unexpectedly discovering true love and lasting happiness along the way. Written with warmth and humour, My Farming Life is a joyous celebration of nature and community, and a delight for anyone who's ever dreamed of living closer to the countryside.

"The Well-Being of Farm Animals: Challenges and Solutions" is the first title in Blackwell Publishing Professional's groundbreaking series Issues in Animal Bioethics. This important book examines the ethical and economic importance of production animal well-being and pain management--topics of increasing concern to consumers.

"The Well-Being of Farm Animals: Challenges and Solutions" offers veterinarians, veterinary and agriculture students, animal scientists, and food animal producers both practical methods to enhance farm animal well-being, and greater understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of those methods. With a variety of perspectives from respected experts and specialists, this book conveys new research findings and promotes valuable discourse on critical issues. Most importantly, editors Benson and Rollin provide feasible instruction to put theory into practice.

The theories and applications presented in this book are likely to be legislated in the future. Therefore, it is important for veterinarians in production animal medicine to keep abreast of the latest issues in promoting animal well-being, and implement sound animal welfare methods every day. "The Well-Being of Farm Animals: Challenges and Solutions" provides the information veterinarians need to do both.

The rapid growth of organic farming has been amongst the most remarkable changes in global agriculture in recent decades. Initially, more attention was paid to the crop side of organic systems, but that has now changed and there is greater recognition of the need to understand animal health and welfare better.This book will further the understanding of organic animal husbandry, demonstrating practical solutions and innovative methods, and drawing mainly on research and practical experience with organic farming in Europe.

The subjects of stress and animal welfare are currently attracting immense interest. This book brings together a range of perspectives from biomedical research (including human health and animal models of human stress) on stress and welfare, and assesses new approaches to conceptualising and alleviating stress.

Never before or since have animals played as significant a role in German history as they did during the Third Reich. Potato beetles and silkworms were used as weapons of war, pigs were used in propaganda, and dog breeding served the Nazis as a model for their racial theories. Paradoxically, some animals were put under special protection while some humans were simultaneously declared unworthy of living. Ultimately, the ways in which Nazis conceptualized and used animals-both literally and symbolically-reveals much about their racist and bigoted attitudes toward other humans. Drawing from diaries, journals, school textbooks, and printed propaganda, J.W. Mohnhaupt tells these animals' stories vividly and with an eye for everyday detail, focusing each chapter on a different facet of Nazism by way of a specific animal species: red deer, horses, cats, and more. Animals under the Swastika illustrates the complicated, thought-provoking relationship between Nazis and animals.

At the heart of every bee hive is a queen bee. Since her well-being is linked to the well-being of the entire colony, the ability to find her among the residents of the hive is an essential beekeeping skill. In QueenSpotting, experienced beekeeper and professional "swarm catcher" Hilary Kearney challenges readers to 'spot the queen' with 48 fold-out queenspotting puzzles - vivid up-close photos of the queen hidden among her many subjects. QueenSpotting celebrates the unique, fascinating life of the queen bee chronicles of royal hive happenings such as The Virgin Death Match, The Nuptual Flight - when the queen mates with a cloud of male drones high in the air - and the dramatic Exodus of the Swarm from the hive. Readers will thrill at Kearney's adventures in capturing these swarms from the strange places they settle, including a Jet Ski, a couch, a speed boat, and an owl's nesting box. Fascinating, fun, and instructive, backyard beekeepers and nature lovers alike will find reason to return to the pages again and again.

Advances in Animal Genomics provides an outstanding collection of integrated strategies involving traditional and modern - omics (structural, functional, comparative and epigenomics) approaches and genomics-assisted breeding methods which animal biotechnologists can utilize to dissect and decode the molecular and gene regulatory networks involved in the complex quantitative yield and stress tolerance traits in livestock. Written by international experts on animal genomics, this book explores the recent advances in high-throughput, next-generation whole genome and transcriptome sequencing, array-based genotyping, and modern bioinformatics approaches which have enabled to produce huge genomic and transcriptomic resources globally on a genome-wide scale. This book is an important resource for researchers, students, educators and professionals in agriculture, veterinary and biotechnology sciences that enables them to solve problems regarding sustainable development with the help of current innovative biotechnologies.

This book presents specially commissioned reviews of key topics in farm animal metabolism and nutrition, where major advances have recently been made or which continue to represent issues of significance for students and researchers. * Advanced level textbook, no other advanced text in this area with such broad scope * First class contributors, including leading researchers from Europe, North America, South Africa and Australia

A complete guide to the use of dietary antioxidants in muscle food products Advances in food and animal science have given rise to a variety of nutritional strategies for improving the quality of muscle food products, from livestock to fish. Antioxidants in Muscle Foods describes a new methodology in this emerging field, which involves the use of dietary antioxidants to improve meat quality while avoiding exogenous food additives or packaging procedures. Through expert contributions by leading scientists from around the globe, this important book answers questions about the science and technology, benefits, and concerns associated with antioxidant supplementation in muscle foods. Photographs, illustrations, charts, and tables accompany in-depth discussions on:
* Oxidative processes in muscle foods
* Dietary strategies for improving the oxidative stability of muscle foods
* The beneficial impact of vitamin E supplementation on meat quality
* Economic and safety implications of nutritionally modified meat
* Food industry applications involving meat, poultry, and seafood
* Animal nutrition and muscle biochemistry
* New areas where nutritional strategies can improve meat quality

Goat meat production is the fastest growing segment of U.S. agriculture, and an estimated 70 percent of all meat consumed globally is from goats. "Storey's ""Guide to Raising Meat Goats" is the essential reference on raising, caring for, and marketing meat goats. This updated edition gives caprine producers the vital information they need to start a meat-goat business or expand their current operation.

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.

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?

This authoritative volume reviews the subject in a style which is comprehensible to the non-specialist. Contributions by leading authorities review avian meat science from basic meat structure and function, color, texture and flavor, through to practical aspects of production, harvesting and slaughter factors affecting meat quality. The book is the result of the 25th Poultry Science Symposium held at the University of Bristol in September 1997.

Research into equine artificial insemination has recently expanded with increasing horse numbers, the developing leisure interest in horse riding and the realization of the economic advantages of artificial insemination. This book provides a detailed reference book on the subject and covers its historical development, relevant equine physiology, current practices and future possibilities. It is extensively referenced to allow further reading into specialized areas.

In the past decade, a number of advances have been made in genetic engineering as applied to farmed animals. This book has been developed from invited presentations at a conference held in California in August 1997, to address this issue. It is written by representatives from the leading laboratories involved in attempts to improve agriculturally important mammals, poultry and fish. Current knowledge, methodology, technical improvements and successes in the applications of transgenic technology to a range of animals which are important in agriculture are brought together for the first time under one cover. This book is essential reading for research workers in animal genetics, breeding and biotechnology.

This comprehensive research book represents the first complete integration of current knowledge in this area. It addresses issues associated with poultry breeding particularly by examining quantitative and molecular genetics and the uses of transgenic technology. A special section covers the important area of disease resistance and transmission

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.

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.

After riding a stagecoach in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show at Madison Square Garden in 1910, Princeton student Irving H. "Larry" Larom was determined to live a life in the West. Later that year, Larom made the first of four summer trips to Wyoming, where he was a guest at Jim McLaughlin's Valley Ranch, nestled in a scenic valley in the upper South Fork of the Shoshone River. Larom became so enamored of the magnificent wilderness environment and the prospects of becoming a dude rancher that he abandoned his life as a New York socialite. Partnering with Brooks Brothers heir and Yale student Winthrop Brooks, he purchased Valley Ranch in 1915.A welcome study of early dude ranch development, Dude Ranching in Yellowstone Country preserves the history of an important Wyoming ranch and the man who built it. W. Hudson Kensel recounts the life of Larom, whose East Coast connections to financial resources and wealthy guests enabled him to transform McLaughlin's small homestead into a major tourist destination and prep school on the edge of Yellowstone National Park. The purchase of Valley Ranch coincided with the opening of Yellowstone to automobile traffic and the onset of World War I. Valley Ranch benefited as western parks and dude ranches became destinations for weary city dwellers and travelers looking for a vacation alternative to war-torn Europe. Besides making the ranch a success, Larom became a civic leader in Cody, Wyoming, a nationally recognized conservationist, and a founder and longtime president of the Dude Ranchers Association. Kensel draws on Larom's papers, local and national newspaper coverage, records of the ranch's prep school, and memories of the citizens and pioneers of northwestern Wyoming to flesh out the story of Valley Ranch as a local and national institution with important influences on conservation, youth education, and the development of western tourism.

Ducks are kept for profit in a great diversity of circumstances in both temperate and tropical climates. Outlining the biology of the domestic duck, this book also combines the authors' considerable practical and scientific experience to provide quantitative descriptions of nutritional and environmental effects on growing and breeding ducks, as well as practical advice on husbandry, housing and management. It is an essential resource for duck industry practitioners, researchers, and students. Peter Cherry worked as Development Manager for a major duck producer before assuming a world-wide role as a consultant. Trevor Morris was a world-renowned poultry scientist who had also worked as a duck consultant. Their combined knowledge of the duck and the duck industry is thus unparalleled.

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.