A major cost component in livestock production is feed, which suggests improved feed efficiency as a promising strategy to improve both competitiveness and environmental sustainability. This study has investigated the technical and economic efficiency of using two alternatives to the standard feeds in livestock production in Norway. Data was generated from two controlled feeding experiments involving

In most ram breeds, there are annual changes in testosterone serum concentration and semen quality. This study aims to determine if eCG administration to rams during the non-breeding season improves the reproductive activity. In the first study, we compared the effects of administering two doses of eCG (400 or 700 IU). In the second experiment we compared the effects of administering eCG to rams from

Heat stress is a great concern in the layer industry because it decreases egg production and egg quality. Orthosiphon stamineus extract (OE) has the potential to relieve heat stress, and rosmarinic acid (RA) is the main effective constituent of OE. However, the effects and mechanisms of OE and RA on heat stress in commercial laying hens remain unclear. In the current study, four hundred eighty 56 wk

Environmental factors, such as temperature and humidity, exert dramatic effects on the production, health, and well-being of lactating dairy cows. Heat-stressed cows undergo a series of homeorhetic adaptations that alters cellular homeostasis and nutrient utilization. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of cooling and dietary crude protein (CP) content on fermentability of rumen

This study was aimed to estimate the effect of soy lecithin (SL) on growth performance, serum metabolites, rumen fermentation and microbial flora in Simmental steers. Sixty Simmental steers were randomly assigned to four treatments: control (C), S1 (TMR with 10 g/kg (DM) SL), S2 (TMR with 20 g/kg (DM) SL) and S3 (TMR with 40 g/kg (DM) SL).The ADG of steers fed 10 g/kg, 20 g/kg and 40 g/kg SL was 8

Whole-genome resequencing is useful for identifying genetic variations for phenotypic diversity and for revealing the in-depth genomic characteristics associated with adaptation to various ecoregions. Adaptability traits in a diverse range of ecological environments are key to the survival of sheep. Mongolian sheep and its subspecies (Hu sheep and Tan sheep) differ in a number of important traits,

Dairy herd efficiency depends on an adequate replacement program, and one of the main management factors affecting the replacement cost is age at first calving (AFC). The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of AFC on performance and economic results in commercial dairy herds in Argentina. A retrospective study was conducted to analyze data from a total of 26,614 first lactation

Farm animal welfare is now an obvious goal for all livestock stakeholders. However, the ways to improve it are neither easy nor evident for animal caretakers or their advisers. Most welfare assessment tools are not designed to be used by farmers but by scientists, vets, breeding advisers or certification bodies. Our project hypothesised that animal welfare could be improved more markedly if farmers

A simple crossbreeding experiment between Fayoumi (F) and Rhode Island Red (R) and their F1 of ½R½F and ½F½R crosses was conducted. A total number of 480 chicks produced from four genetic groups was used to estimate direct additive genetic effects (GI), maternal effects (GM) and direct heterosis (HI) for growth traits by using generalized least squares procedure. The studied traits were body weights

The current study aimed to determine how Clostridium butyricum (C. butyricum) relieved diarrhea by evaluating its effects on intestinal digestive enzyme activity, barrier integrity, inflammatory responses, and oxidative stress in weaned piglets. A total of 360 weaned piglets that were 25 days old (180 males and 180 females) were randomly assigned to 5 groups in 6 pens, with 12 pigs per pen, and offered

No study has compared the effect of Nigella sativa and Saccharomyces cerevisiae on performance, fecal E. coli and heamatopoitic potential of broiler under experimental condition of Colibacillosis. The aim of the study was to evaluate the protective effect of N. sativa and S. cerevisiae on zootechnical characteristics, fecal microbial load and hematopoietic potential in broiler infected with Escherichia

Prenatal stress in beef cattle has the potential to result in unexpected, long-term phenotypic changes to an animal's performance. One possible explanation for this phenomenon is stress-induced epigenetic alterations of the genome (e.g., methylation or histone modifications). The objective of this experiment was to identify differential DNA methylation patterns in prenatally stressed (PNS) Brahman

Effects of chitosan oligosaccharide (COS) supplementation to the diets of sow and/or their offspring on performance and immune response were investigated. Multiparous sows (3 to 5 parity; Landrace × Yorkshire) were fed either a control diet (sCON, n = 20) or a diet containing 30 mg kg−1 COS (sCOS, n = 20) from day 86 of gestation until weaning at day 20 of lactation. Piglets from Duroc × Landrace × Yorkshire

The aim of the study was to evaluate whether oral administration of Lactobacillus plantarum 299v (LP299v) would have positive effects on the performance, blood metabolites, rumen fermentation and bacterial communities of preweaning calves. Twenty-four Holstein calves (3 days old; 41.87 ± 1.98 kg body weight (BW)) were grouped by BW and thereafter randomly allocated to 1 of 2 treatment groups: (1) an

Traditionally, in dairy production, traits included in total merit indices (TMI) are weighted based on their economic importance in the production system in which they are meant to be used. In the Nordic countries, Nordic Total Merit (NTM) is used. Farmers may, however, have herd-specific breeding goals, which can differ greatly from TMI. Recently, surveys have been conducted among dairy farmers to

Eight broiler chicken diets were produced by using 2 pellet conditioning temperatures (65 and 85°C) and 4 pellet retention times in the conditioner (3, 9, 14, and 20 s). The effect of dietary treatments on pellet physical quality (intact pellet percentage, pellet hardness, pellet durability index, and water activity), growth performance (0 to 21 and 0 to 42 d), apparent ileal digestibility (CAID) of

The aim of this research was to evaluate the effects of the temperament of bovine females Bos taurus indicus submitted to a timed artificial insemination (TAI) protocol on the concentrations of cortisol, diameter of the largest follicle, pregnancy by TAI on Days 30 (P/TAI 30) and 60 (P/TAI 60) after TAI. Nellore cows (n = 2702) of 45 ± 7 days post-partum were submitted to the same TAI protocol. On

Energy spent on thermoregulation and the opportunity for increased locomotive activity increases the energy requirements of outdoor relative to indoor housed sows, whilst their protein requirement most likely is comparable on a daily basis. The purpose of this study was to quantify the energy needed for maintenance, maternal retention, milk production, thermoregulation and increased locomotive activity

We executed two studies to investigate the possibility of reducing crude protein (CP) content throughout feedlot of growing lambs, when they are changing their body composition, and passing from most protein retention to fat deposition for finishing. A performance trial (EXP 1) with 40 Santa Ines crossbred sheep (initial body weight (BW) of 15.6±1.6 kg) were carried out in a completely randomized design

Nowadays, animal welfare is driving consumers’ purchase choice, hence the challenge to recover rabbit sector from many years of downturn is to find a valuable compromise between animal welfare, farmers’ needs, and meat quality. Among the efforts to improve rabbit welfare, mirrors have been proposed as cages or pens enrichment; however, it is unclear if they affect rabbit meat quality. Hence, the present

Six feeding trials were conducted to determine the male and female broiler optimum standardized ileal digestible tryptophan intake (SID Trp) in the starter (1 to 14 d of age), grower (14 to 28 d of age) and finisher (28 to 42 d of age) phases. In each trial 640 Cobb 500 broilers were randomly assigned to one of 7 treatments, with 4 replicates with 20 birds. Diets were formulated using dilution technique

This study was conducted to investigate linkage disequilibrium (LD), historical effective population size (Ne) and haplotype block structures in genomes of highly selected Polish Arabian (AR; n=124) horses and conserved horse breeds derived from Polish native breeds, in particular, Malopolski (MLP; n=56), Sokolski (SOK; n=107), Sztumski (SZTUM; n=69), Hucul (HC; n=116) and Polish Konik (KN; n=99) horses

The objective of this study was to investigate 3D-kinematics as a method for determining if primiparous dairy cows display differences in behaviour biometrics during the estrus period as ovulation approaches in a tie-stall system. The second objective was to evaluate the accuracy of behaviour biometrics as estrus alerts. Fourteen primiparous dairy cows (n = 14) were studied as part of a split-plot

This study was conducted to determine the influence of substitution of fish meal with dried mealworm (Tenebrio molitor) larvae on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, blood profiles and fecal noxious gas emission in weaned pigs. A total of 240 crossbred weaned pigs [(Yorkshire × Landrace) × Duroc] at 22 d of age with an average body weight (BW) of 6.90 ± 0.03 kg were randomly allocated into

Emission intensities from beef production vary both among production systems (countries) and farms within a country depending upon use of natural resources and management practices. A whole-farm model developed for Norwegian suckler cow herds, HolosNorBeef, was used to estimate GHG emissions from 27 commercial beef farms in Norway with Angus, Hereford, and Charolais cattle. HolosNorBeef considers direct

Recent research has demonstrated that grazing cows fed diets including plantain (Plantago lanceolata) express reduced urinary nitrogen (UN) concentration relative to cows fed perennial ryegrass, while milk production is similar or improved. This study explored the effect of increased substitution of ryegrass-based pasture with plantain for cows fed ad libitum in late lactation on intake, nitrogen (N)

Genetic and phenotypic parameter estimates obtained in different studies, may be heterogeneous. This is because they are obtained in different locations, using different sample sizes and estimation methods. The choice of which parameter estimates to use, is in most cases subjective and this may lead to underestimation or overestimation of potential genetic gain. The objective of the current study was

The current experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of different types of probiotics on growth performance, carcass traits, intestinal microflora, and jejunal morphology of Japanese quail in comparison with Flavophospholipol antibiotic supplement. A total of 540 one-day old quail chicks were randomly divided into five groups with six replicates (18 birds per pen). The experimental groups included:

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of heat stress (HS) on: i) time and daily pattern of rumination and ii) in situ degradability in Holstein-Gyr crossbred dry cows. Nine cows, weighing 556.2 ± 97.1 kg were housed in a climate chamber (average THI=83.1) or a freestall barn (average THI=66.5) randomly assigned to treatments in a crossover design. Cows were fed corn silage ad libitum

This study compares the fertility effects of inducing ovulation using the GnRH analogue dephereline versus natural GnRH at the end of a 5-day progesterone(P4)-based protocol for fixed-time artificial insemination (FTAI) in heat-stressed and non-heat stressed anestrous lactating dairy cows. Cows were given GnRH (GnRH group, n = 676) or dephereline (DEPH group, n = 655) and inseminated 12 hours later

This study aimed to evaluate the effects of the feeding system (AL: ad libitum, R: feed restriction) and group composition (X: only females, Y: only males, XY: mixed sex) on the feed intake pattern, growth, and slaughter results in growing rabbits. A total of 288 crossbred rabbits were housed in 18 pens (16 animals per pen) from weaning to slaughter (33 to 75 d of age). At the beginning of the trial

Tick infestation and associated diseases (i.e., babesiosis) constitute major drawbacks for improvement of beef cattle productivity in the tropics, mainly when purebred and crossbred taurine animals are used. Host-parasite-pathogen interactions form complex biological systems that are poorly understood and which significantly affect production and quality traits in ways yet to be dissected and described

Introduction of infectious agents (e.g. African swine fever) in a farm could have severe implications beyond the farm level. Among the solutions required to minimize the risk of disease introduction and spread, the strengthening of biosecurity is a priority. Yet, although the pig fattening (finishing) herds comprise 41.2% of the pig herds on a European level, the so far published studies on assessing

Effects of partial substitution of barley with maize and beet pulp (BP) on animal performance, rumen fermentation and rumen microbial populations were evaluated in thirty-nine newly weaned calves transitioned from a milk and pasture regime to a high-concentrate ration. Diets were: a barley-based growing diet (C); and two diets in which barley was partially replaced with maize and 10% BP (BP10) or 22%

Calves are born almost agammaglobulinemic and thus need an adequate amount of good quality colostrum to avoid failure of transfer of passive immunity. The quality of colostrum is influenced by several factors such as the volume of colostrum produced, collection time, the concentration of immunoglobulins, breed, the age of dam, and mastitis events in the previous lactation. In this study, we evaluated

The present study evaluated the effect of a 6-phytase of bacterial origin (NatuphosⓇ E) alone or with a carbohydrase combination (NatugrainⓇ TS) dietary supplement for weaned piglets on growth performance, diarrhea incidence, and bone parameters. One hundred forty-four weaned piglets were assigned to six treatments with eight replicates per treatment, using a randomized block design. The study lasted

Consumers’ willingness to pay a premium when purchasing pork chops is driven by eating satisfaction. Genetic parameters for sensory traits and their associations with pH and intramuscular fat were estimated in pork chops. A univariate animal model was used to estimate the heritability of the sensory traits in ASReml using pedigree information, while phenotypic and genetic correlations were estimated

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of dietary supplementation of Ca anacardate and citric acid for weaned piglets on growth performance, diarrhea incidence, pH of gastrointestinal contents, blood profile, intestinal morphometry, and immunohistochemistry in the periods I (d 0 to 12), II (d 12 to 22), III (d 22 to 42), and total (d 0 to 42). A total of 96 barrows weaned at 21 d of

The main objective of this study was to investigate the effects of increasing dietary supplementation of crushed sunflower seeds (CSS) in dairy cow diet on mammary expression of genes involved in de novo fatty acid (FA) synthesis, FA desaturation, FA transport/uptake, cholesterol homeostasis, and regulation of transcription. Twenty-four cows were allocated to one of four diets supplemented with CSS

The objective of this study was to determine the effects of feeding two kinds of alfalfa varieties, Gannon No. 3 (G3) and Gannon No. 9 (G9), with variable contents of tannin and flavonoids and compare their effects to dietary supplements of tannin and flavones on ruminal degradation kinetics and serum metabolites. Fifteen ruminally cannulated small-tailed Han rams were divided into five groups and

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of selenium-enriched Saccharomyces cerevisiae on the performance, composition and quality of milk from cows fed diets containing dried malt bagasse. Eight Holstein cows were distributed in a 4 × 4 double Latin square. The treatments were in a 2 × 2 factorial scheme: with or without the inclusion of malt bagasse x with or without the addition of

In this study, 18 Tibetan sheep were assigned into four groups by age and sex, namely young ewes (E1, n = 5), young rams (R1, n = 3), adult ewes (EA, n = 5) and adult rams (RA, n =5) to profile the bacterial composition of Tibetan sheep and to explore the impacts of sex and age on rumen microbiota using high-throughput sequencing method of amplicon of 16S rRNA V3–V4 region. The results indicated that

Identification of disease-causing genes that underlie complex traits, such as susceptibility to disease, is the primary goal of genetic and biomedical researches. Bovine mastitis is the most prevalent disease with substantial economic losses and animal welfare issues in dairy industry. Quantitative trait loci (QTLs) and single-nucleotide polymorphism or gene association data as biomarkers were used

Precision livestock farming affects the nature and frequency of farmers’ daily tasks, specifically in relation to animals. It consequently may modify how farmers consider their animals, the quality of the human-animal relationship and animal welfare. To better understand how new technologies impact human-animal relationships on the farm, a survey was carried out on 25 livestock farms in France. The

Farmers play a decisive role in raising animal welfare and health standards on their farms. It is often assumed that they act on a purely economic basis. However, changing insights have shown that psychological and sociological drivers should also be acknowledged. This was tested in a study focusing on dairy farmers’ decision making concerning participation in a hypothetical dairy health programme

A total of 185 crossbred pigs (Yorkshire x Landrace; 20.7 ± 2.5 d of age and 6.7 ± 1.1 kg BW) from 3 weaning groups were used to evaluate dietary n-6:n-3 fatty acid (FA) ratios on nursery and growing pigs. Within each weaning group, pigs were blocked by BW and randomly assigned to 1 of 5 dietary treatments in a randomized complete block design with balanced sex and 4 or 5 pigs/pen within each block

This study was conducted to determine the fecal recovery rate of n-alkanes and compare the precision and accuracy of the n-alkane technique and the conventional total fecal collection method in estimating the apparent nutrient digestibility of mixed hay diets fed to horses. Six castrated male adult horses (361 ± 12 kg body weight) were fed diets composed of different proportions of Tifton 85 bermudagrass

Stressful situations, such as weaning and transport, are known to impact beef cattle health and performance. Hence, alternatives to minimize these stress-related losses are warranted and the bovine appeasing substance (BAS) is expected to have calming effects in cattle going through stressful events. Therefore, 2 studies were designed to investigate the impacts of BAS administration at weaning (Experiment

This study aimed to evaluate the effect of feeding a mixture of herbal plants and spices enriched with special extracts and essential oils (phytogenic additives mixture) on feed intake, feed utilisation, blood chemistry, slaughter characteristics and caecal bacteria in rabbits. Ninety weaned unsexed V-Line rabbits, weighing 668.7 ± 8.2 g and aged 30 ± 1 days, were randomly allocated to three groups

The effects of divergent calf rearing diets and post-weaning pasture quality on growth, carcass traits, economics and the environment were investigated. Beef x dairy heifer calves were allocated to one of two rearing treatments, followed by a low (L)- or high (H) quality post-weaning pasture diet from 3 to 7 months old, in a 2 × 2 factorial design (n=50 per treatment). The R1 rearing treatment received

The milk fat content and fatty acid profile in sheep milk can vary considerably and can be manipulated through diet. The aim of this study was to analyse the effect of forage concentration ratio and fat supplementation in diet on milk yield production, fat, protein, lactose and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) content in dairy sheep using a meta-analytical approach. The sources of heterogeneity of dependent

Eight Anglo-Nubian goats with 42.06 ± 3.5 kg body weight (BW) and 51 ± 4.0 d in milk were randomly assigned in a double 4 × 4 Latin square experiment with 20-d periods and four diets with different concentrations of crude glycerin (0, 70, 140 and 210 g/kg on DM basis) to evaluate the effects on intake and on production, composition, fatty acid (FA) profile and sensory traits of milk. The inclusion

Limited water intake in small ruminants induced by water scarcity may result in pre-slaughter stress. A possible management practice could be the supplementation of exogenous antioxidant during the period of water stress. The effect of water restriction (W) levels with or without single and/or multiple vitamin C (VC) supplementations were evaluated on plasma hormones (cortisol, β-estradiol, thyroxine

Steers are often implanted with androgenic and/or estrogenic hormones to repartition nutrients to increase protein synthesis while increasing feed efficiency and profitability. Long-acting implants with 200 d of activity are available that may simplify multi-implant regimens and reduce labor costs and cattle handling. The purpose of this study was to determine if steers grazing wheat pasture for 180

The objective of this study was to determine the effects of soybean bioactive peptides (SBP) supplementation to sows during late gestation and lactation on plasma and milk free amino acid composition and reproductive performance. A total of 86 gestating sows (Landrace × × Yorkshire; mean parity of 2.40 [SD 1.18]) from two successive batches of with a 9-day interval were randomly assigned to either

In southern Brazil, beef cattle production systems generally rely on grazing on natural pastures. However, their forage production, and consequently metabolizable energy (ME) production, is seasonal and influenced by climatic events. Thus, there is a scientific and commercial interest in evaluating and understanding the biological impacts of intensification using pasture irrigation and the effects

The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of temperament on body weight and reproductive performance of Nellore bulls. Temperament of 24 young bulls was assessed by chute score (CS) and flight speed (FS). Based on the results of two consecutive evaluations (M1 and M2), bulls were divided into two groups according to their CS: Reactive (n=12) and Calm (n=12). Blood samples were collected from

Stereotypies are repetitive behaviors the may be performed in effort to relieve frustration or cope with a sub-optimal environment. Cattle are hypothesized to cope with the differences between forage and grain-based diets with oral stereotypies that manifest as in the form of non-nutritive oral behaviors (NNOB). Diets fed in confinement contain less roughage compared to the predominantly forage diets