Animal nutrition livestock production

The actual Council Directive 99/29/EC (1999) on undesirable substances (heavy metals and other substances) in animal nutrition prescribes that feed materials and feedstuffs may only be marketed if they are sound, genuine and of merchantable quality and therefore, when correctly used, do not represent any danger to human health (presence in livestock products), but also to animal health or to the environment or could adversely affect livestock production. 

Organic livestock production systems attempt to accommodate an animal s natural nutritional and behavioral requirements, ensuring that dairy cows and other ruminants, for example, have access to pasture. USDA organic livestock standards incorporate requirements for living conditions, pasture and access to the outdoors, feed ration, and health care practices suitable to the needs of the particular species. 

Consideration of sulphur in animal nutrition is important in areas of intensive livestock production where sulphur in soils is not replaced regularly by fertiliser application. 

Historically, the nutrition of animals can be divided into three general areas. Initial studies in animal nutrition focused on determination of essential nutrients. This effort was followed by investigations concerned with maximizing feed efficiency in livestock to obtain the greatest product yield with minimum feed inputs. Recently, efforts have focused on dietary supplementation of livestock to improve the quality of the product subsequently obtained from food-producing animals. The term quality is broad and as used here is meant to include aspects of improved shelf-stability, consumer acceptance and food safety. 

L-lysine is an alkali-amino acid that belongs to the aspartate branch in the biosynthesis of amino acids. It is an essential amino acid in animal nutrition. Many plant products used for livestock feed, such as wheat and com, are deficient in L-lysine, and thus, it must be added as a supplement in the form of soybean meal. The content of lysine in such products in comparison with soybean meal is shown in Table 2. 

What is the importance of cereals, and their by-products in animal nutrition Investigate what percentage of the total cereal grain production is used as livestock feed. 

A variety of helminths belonging to the class nematoda (roundworms), trema-toda (flatworms or flukes) and cestoda (tapeworms) are known to infect humans and domestic animals. The diseases caused by these worms are not only responsible for occasional deaths and wide range of health problems in man, but also exert detrimental effect on the nutritional and immune status of the host resulting in low resistance against other infections. The presence of helminth infections in livestock leads to decrease in output of animal products (milk, fat, butter, meat, eggs, wool and leather etc.) and has, therefore, strong socio-economic impact in countries with agro-and dairy-based industries [7]. 

Near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy has been traditionally developed in animal science to evaluate the chemical composition of forages (4, 5, 15). Compared with forages, little information is available on the suitability of NIR spectroscopy in the estimation of the chemical composition and nutritive value of by-product materials derived from livestock. The information available in the literature relates only to the use of NIR spectroscopy to determine gross chemical composition such as dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP), fat (oil), and amino acid content in a few livestock animal by-products. Examples of NIR applications in animal by-products are summarized in Tables 8.3.3 and 8.3.4. Good correlations were found for DM and CP in the different animal by-products. Although good correlations were found for some amino acids, Fontaine et al. (22) stated that the calibration for sulfur-containing amino acids are... 

In relating nutrition and infection, two areas of Importance must be considered (1) public health, i.e., the prevention and treatment of human disease and metabolic disorders and (2) livestock and poultry production. The production of meat, fibre, and animal materials continues to be a more intensive operation in the agricultural system of this country and the world. The number of high density systems or confinement operations will continue to increase. With the expansion of these operations, new and more severe problems of disease control have appeared. The nutritionists that develop diets for these confinement operations are responsible not only for providing the basic nutrient requirements, but are also called upon to optimize the health of the animals through diet to reduce the impact of infection and other stresses We hope the information presented here will be a step in that direction. 

Cereals constitute the main source of energy for poultry and swine. The most popular feed grains are maize, sorghum, oats, and barley. These grains have an excellent palatability, especially oats. Tables 18.9 and 18.10 summarize nutrition composition and energy values for poultry and different livestock animals of the most common feed cereal gains and their by-products. 

Norton, B. W., 2000. The significance of tannins in tropical animal production. In (ed.) J.D. Brooker, Tannins in livestock and human nutrition. Proceedings ofan International Workshop , Adelaide, Australia, 31 May-2 June 1999 14-23. 

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