Sheep farming, whether for meat or wool, has always been an essential component in diversifying farming systems, particularly in exploiting land unsuitable for arable crops. The sector faces a range of challenges in meeting rising demand. There is an ongoing threat both from endemic and more exotic diseases. Consumer expectations about nutritional and sensory quality have never been higher. There is also greater concern about the environmental impact of animal production and animal welfare issues. Drawing on an international range of expertise, this book reviews research addressing these challenges. The first part of the book addresses quality issues affecting meat, wool and dairy products from sheep. The book then goes on to discuss advances in breeding before reviewing ways of improving sheep nutrition, health and welfare. The collection concludes by assessing the environmental impact of sheep production and ways it can be more effectively managed. Achieving sustainable production of sheep will be a standard reference for animal and food scientists in universities, government and other research centres and companies involved in supporting sheep farming.

Globally, nearly 70 billion animals are farmed annually for meat, milk and eggs. Two-thirds of these are farmed intensively. The views held by food companies on animal stewardship, and the management practices and processes that they adopt are, therefore, of critical importance in determining the welfare of these animals. Yet, despite the scale of the food industry's impact, farm animal welfare remains a relatively immature management issue. There is a lack of consensus around the specific responsibilities companies have for farm animal welfare, and around how companies should treat the animals in their or in their suppliers' care. This book, The Business of Farm Animal Welfare, provides an extensive, authoritative analysis of current corporate practice on farm animal welfare. It critically reviews and assesses the ethical and business case for action. Through a series of practitioner case-studies, it describes how companies have addressed farm animal welfare in their operations and supply chains. It analyses the key barriers to companies adopting higher standards of farm animal welfare, and offers a series of practical recommendations to companies, consumers and policy makers on the role that they might play in raising farm animal welfare standards across the food industry. As the first comprehensive account of business and farm animal welfare, this book is an essential resource for researchers, practitioners and general readers looking to understand and influence corporate practice on farm animal welfare.

The pioneer of herbal veterinary medicine has again thoroughly revised, updated and expanded her book on natural and organic cures and farming methods, first published in 1952 and now a classic in its field. Juliette de Bairacli Levy's The Complete Herbal Handbook for Farm and Stable contains everything farmers need to know about farm management and animal husbandry. Levy's groundbreaking work in this insightful guide provides an invaluable resource for farmers and anyone interested in holistic veterinary medicine.

The value of gums, thickeners, stabilizers and gelling agents as ingredients of food products is well established. The market for products requiring these ingredients is growing, and it is anticipated that it will continue to grow. As new products and processes are developed, so the demands made on ingredients change, but they must provide consistent properties, including stability throughout shelf life. In this book, chapters are organized on a product-category basis and provide information in a standard format for ease of reference. Information on chemical structure and configuration is reviewed in terms of viscosity, temperature, effect of salts, pH stability and other properties. Detailed coverage is given to the use of combinations of materials, which can provide benefits exceeding those of the individual components. This book should be of interest to food technologists, production managers, process engineers and chemical engineers.

Roaming Wild details the unconventional and pioneering lives of Anna and Peter Roberts, a British couple who were instrumental in making the animal welfare movement a respectable, highly-impactful and worldwide organisation. This book explores the paths that led Anna and Peter to found and steward what is now the world's largest and most successful animal welfare charity from a backroom of their own home, with few funds, and at a time when caring for animals and our planet was seen as 'crankish' and 'sentimental'. This is the story of their family, their era, influence, their rebellion and prophetic ideas and the development of Compassion in World Farming. It spans the period from the early 1920s when they were born, throughout the decades of their childhoods and World War II, to their highly romantic meeting and marriage in the 1950s, and then the next years of their lives as dairy and chicken farmers in rural Hampshire. This 'ordinary' part of their story preceded their move to change everything by making the 'extraordinary' decision during the tumultuous 1960s, of risking their livelihood, going vegetarian (as animal farmers), and losing the approval of their peers, to found their compassion-driven campaign. This personal transformation was at a time when the British countryside was also transforming, irrevocably and for the worse, when intensive, polluting farms were just taking root, the cruel battery and broiler system had recently been developed, and the countryside's biodiversity was being destroyed with the implementation of monoculture and the profligate spraying of lethal biocides, such as DDT. The Roberts were at first rejected by the popular animal charities of the day; believing that the public cared only about companion animals or those in circuses, rather than those animals who suffer the most at human hands - those in the food chain - and so the Roberts family went out alone and set up CIWF in the face of much public derision. Then followed the highs and lows of campaign life, a court battle with an order of veal-farming Catholic monks, famine campaigns in Ethiopia, work alongside comedian Spike Milligan, model Celia Hammond and philosopher Peter Singer, challenging EU legislation, and battles with agricultural and chemical giant Monsanto. Corporate giants like McDonald's were influenced to go free-range, even the British Royal family was challenged to go free-range, and animals were put on the agenda of every major political party in the 1970s and much more. The story interweaves the personal with the political and documents the highs and lows of family life, the judgement faced when they chose to raise their three daughters as vegetarians in the 1960s, their myriad spiritual quests, including the couple's time spent in the Indian ashram of Sathya Sai Baba, their rewilding of the land near their family home, and the story of their fifty-year love. This is a tale of an 'ordinary couple with an extraordinary vision'.

Laboratory Animal Anaesthesia, Fourth Edition provides a basic guide to anaesthesia for a very diverse audience needing content, with straight-forward, structured style of writing. Updated with effects of anaesthetics in different laboratory species, including sources of dose rates will be incorporated into tabular material. New information on pain assessment and pain management will be covered, and an increased emphasis on rats and mice for anaesthesia and perioperative care. With newly revised, full color illustrations to facilitate best learning, Laboratory animal Anesthesia, Fourth Edition provides procedures, key points and invaluable advice from a well-known and respected veterinary anesthetist and scientist with over 30 years of experience in the field.

Silk banners and stone dragons, dusty corrals and saddle leather-the North China plains of the warlords meets the cowboy culture of Western America in the years before World War II. Fred Barton led this extraordinary adventure and enterprise to supply horses for the feudal warlords, and only cowboys recruited from the ranches and rodeo arenas of the Western states had the skill to herd thousands of horses across Siberia, Mongolia, to China. Yet Fred Barton himself remains enigmatic...a cowboy, adventurer, promoter, who had his eyes on many prizes. Barton not only took his version of the Old West to Russia and China, but also to Hollywood at a time when the motion picture industry was constructing a myth of the Old West just as open range cowboy life was disappearing. This Montana bronc buster deliberately obscured parts of his life. Along the way, Barton became part of the network of unofficial U.S. intelligence in the Far East, bred a new type of horse, and tirelessly defended the values of the open range cowboy. His legacy lives on, affecting world events today, as told in this illustrated biography.

* provides guidance on how to take a participatory approach to needs assessment* shows how to conduct participatory technology development while avoiding or minimizing problems associated with on-farm livestock experiments illustrates how a participatory approach to technology development can be applied effectively, drawing on the experiences of a wide range of successful projectsLivestock research and development work has tended to lag behind crop production work in the development and application of methods for participatory technology development. However, the case for participatory research is just as strong in relation to livestock as it is in relation to crops; and there has been increasing recognition that livestock research needs to give greater emphasis to farmer participation. This book is intended to help livestock researchers and practitioners to overcome the potential difficulties associated with participatory livestock research.The book is aimed at: livestock and rangeland researchers (in national agricultural research systems, universities and NGOs); extensionists and practitioners of livestock development (in livestock service agencies and NGOs).

Animal biotechnology is a broad umbrella encompassing the polarities of fundamental and applied research including molecular modelling, molecular and quantitative genetics, gene manipulation, development of diagnostics and vaccines and manipulation of tissue or digestion metabolism by growth promoters. Although animal biotechnology in the broadest sense is not new, what is new is the level of complexity and precision involved in scientists' current ability to manipulate living organisms. This new book sets out to show that the important ideas in animal biotechnology are exciting and relevant to everyday experience. It represents an important update of the literature for research workers, lecturers, and advisers in animal science, but is also a core text for advanced undergraduate courses in animal science and biotechnology. It will be an essential acquisition for librarians in agriculture and veterinary science.

Sheep are the thread that runs through the history of the English countryside. Our fortunes were once founded on sheep, and this book tells a story of wool and money and history, of merchants and farmers and shepherds, of English yeomen and how they got their freedom, and above all, of the soil. Sheep have helped define our culture and topography, impacting on everything from accent and idiom, architecture, roads and waterways, to social progression and wealth. With his eye for the idiosyncratic, Philip meets the native breeds that thrive in this country; he tells stories about each breed, meets their shepherds and owners, learns about their past - and confronts the present realities of sheep farming. Along the way, Philip meets the people of the countryside and their many professions: the mole-catchers, the stick-makers, the tobacco-twisters and clog-wrights. He explores this artisan heritage as he re-discovers the countryside, and finds a lifestyle parallel to modern existence, struggling to remain unchanged - and at its heart, always sheep.

First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Through a richly detailed examination of the practices of spinning yarn from the fleece of llamas and alpacas, Earth, Water, Fleece and Fabric explores the relationship that herders of the present and of the past have maintained with their herd animals in the Andes. Dransart juxtaposes an ethnography of an Aymara herding community, based on more than ten years fieldwork in Isluga in the Chilean highlands, with archaeological material from excavations in the Atacama desert.
Impeccably researched, this book is the first systematic study to set the material culture of pastoral communities against an understanding of the long-term effects of herding practices.

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eBook available with sample pages: 0203219732

In today's world, we are witnessing simultaneous breakthroughs in reproductive technologies, genomics, and molecular biology. Advances in molecular genetic technology and understanding of the bovine genome have led to the development of tools that can be used to enhance profitability on cow-calf enterprises. Factors Affecting Calf Crop: Biotechnology of Reproduction provides a detailed compilation of current and forthcoming technology for managing reproduction in cattle.

The book discusses topics such as: approved techniques for controlling the estrous cycle in cattle; managing follicular growth with progesterone, estrogens, and prostaglandins; freezing, thawing, and transfer of cattle embryos; application of embryo transfer to the beef cattle industry; embryo transfer in topically adapted cattle; new factors affecting bull fertility; embryo collection and utilization technology, in vitro fertilization, somatic cell cloning, and genetic technologies; uses of real-time ultrasound; and sexed semen.

Over 25 leading animal scientists have combined their expertise to produce the first single-source reference that covers successful reproductive techniques that will, most likely, be the wave of the future. Expansive in scope, the book addresses current biotechnologies as they impact the production of beef cattle. Written at a level to appeal to the researcher, commercial producer, or student, Factors Affecting Calf Crop: Biotechnology of Reproduction presents you with a wealth of technologies applicable to animal agriculture.

Through a richly detailed examination of the practices of spinning yarn from the fleece of llamas and alpacas, Earth, Water, Fleece and Fabric explores the relationship that herders of the present and of the past have maintained with their herd animals in the Andes. Dransart juxtaposes an ethnography of an Aymara herding community, based on more than ten years fieldwork in Isluga in the Chilean highlands, with archaeological material from excavations in the Atacama desert.
Impeccably researched, this book is the first systematic study to set the material culture of pastoral communities against an understanding of the long-term effects of herding practices.

Aquaculture now supplies half of the seafood and fisheries products consumed worldwide and is gaining international significance as a source of food and income. Future demands for seafood and fisheries products can only be met by expanded aquaculture production. Such production will likely become more intensive and will depend increasingly on nutritious and efficient aquaculture feeds containing ingredients from sustainable sources. To meet this challenge, Nutrient Requirements of Fish and Shrimp provides a comprehensive summary of current knowledge about nutrient requirements of fish and shrimp and supporting nutritional science. This edition incorporates new material and significant updates to information in the 1993 edition. It also examines the practical aspects of feeding of fish and shrimp. Nutrient Requirements of Fish and Shrimp will be a key resource for everyone involved in aquaculture and for others responsible for the feeding and care of fish and shrimp. It will also aid scientists in developing new and improved approaches to satisfy the demands of the growing aquaculture industry. Table of Contents Front Matter Summary

Behavior is shaped by both genetics and experience--nature and nurture. This book synthesizes research from behavioral genetics and animal and veterinary science, bridging the gap between these fields. The objective is to show that principles of behavioral genetics have practical applications to agricultural and companion animals.

The continuing domestication of animals is a complex process whose myriad impacts on animal behavior are commonly under-appreciated. Genetic factors play a significant role in both species-specific behaviors and behavioral differences exhibited by individuals in the same species. Leading authorities explore the impact of increased intensities of selection on domestic animal behavior. Rodents, cattle, pigs, sheep, horses, herding and guard dogs, and poultry are all included in these discussions of genetics and behavior, making this book useful to veterinarians, livestock producers, laboratory animal researchers and technicians, animal trainers and breeders, and any researcher interested in animal behavior.
Includes four new chapters on dog and fox behavior, pig behavior, the effects of domestication and horse behaviorSynthesizes research from behavioral genetics, animal science, and veterinary literatureBroaches fields of behavior genetics and behavioral researchIncludes practical applications of principles discovered by behavioral genetics researchersCovers many species ranging from pigs, dogs, foxes, rodents, cattle, horses, and cats

The one-humped camel, or dromedary, is one of the world's hardiest domesticated animals. A vital source of transport, meat, milk and income for pastoralists in the Sahel, East Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, the camel can carry heavy loads for days in some of the world's most hostile conditions. But even camels fall ill. A Field Manual of Camel Diseases is the first practical guide to camel diseases designed for use in low technology environments. The manual details some 80 major camel diseases and conditions, ranging from abortions to wry neck syndrome. For each disease, the authors give the disease signs, its causes, and simple prevention and treatment methods. Both scientific and tried and tested traditional treatments are presented, thus enabling the veterinarian or livestock practitioner to make the most appropriate choice in the prevailing circumstances. A section on procedures explains how to examine a camel, take samples for laboratory analysis and apply various types of medicines.

The farming of animals for meat and milk confronts a stark dilemma. While world demand from a growing and more affluent human population is increasing rapidly, there are strong counter-arguments that we should eat less meat and pay more attention to environmental protection, animal welfare and human health and well-being. The aim of this book is to identify and explain the causes and contributors to current problems in animal husbandry, especially those related to 'factory farming', and advance arguments that may contribute to its successful re-orientation. Husbandry is considered in its broadest sense, namely the productive and sustainable use of the land for the good of all (plants, humans and other animals). The first part of the book outlines principles and arguments necessary to engage with current problems: depletion of natural resources and destruction of environment, animal welfare, food and health, fair trade and sharing resources. These arguments are illustrated by examples and sufficient evidence to justify the argument without obscuring the message. The second part presents a series of constructive proposals for change and development in animal husbandry, both in the developed world and subsistence agriculture. These include more integrated crop and livestock farming systems, the ethics of animal welfare and environmental management, and the evolution of a new social contract whereby the rights of the people to a fair share of good, safe food and a green and pleasant land are matched by a shared responsibility to preserve these things.

Reissue of this immortal, hilarious, and heartwarming classic about working a chicken farm in the Northwest.

Presents the findings of a training project in Nepal which teaches basic animal health care techniques to Nepalese villagers. Ten years later an evaluation was conducted to determine whether there was a continuing need for the courses and to assess their effectiveness. This book describes the course structure, content and approach, and presents the finding of the evaluation, offering an insight into a programme which could usefully be replicated in other rural areas all over the world.

Economic analysis of beef cattle production has been limited by the inability to fully describe the underlying production process. Except for confined feeding of cattle, beef cattle production is the process of growing cattle who consume forages. The animal and the forage possess attributes of both factors and products of production. The production of forage constitutes one production process, animal growth is another production process, and reproduction by female animals is a third production process. Cattle production involves all three processes in such a manner that each influences the outcome of the other. Each process is itself complex and analysis is further complicated when all three are considered simultaneously.

This guide is a quality directory of agricultural equipment and machinery which is suitable for small scale beekeeping and honey processing. A general introduction to beekeeping is followed by an illustrated catalogue of suitable equipment and the addresses of suppliers and manufacturers.

The book aims to bring together the essential information on animal behaviour for those concerned with the husbandry, management and welfare of farm animals. It provides information to make fuller use of labour, reduce accidents, and increase the wellbeing and productivity of farm livestock.

This handbook on tropical beekeeping for beginners is based on first hand Ghanaian experience.

Behaving like the other sex has been observed in a number of species of mammals, although such behaviour is generally more common in the female than the male. This study discusses why such capacity is so common in sexually differentiated animals. The contributors gather together information on the generation of heterotypical sexual behaviour and on certain forms of aggression. They provide a review of the current state of knowledge from both animal experimentation and human clinical studies, looking at the role of physiological mechanisms and experiences in such controversial topics as the genesis of homosexuality.