The aim of this study was to explore lameness and the associations between lameness and health/production measures of animal welfare in commercial broiler production, using the Welfare Quality® protocol for broilers. A total of 50 flocks were included in the sample and farm visits were conducted for lameness scoring at a mean age of 28.9 days. The percentage of animals (n=7500) in the six different gait score (GS) categories were GS0: 2.53%, GS1: 44.19%, GS2: 33.84%, GS3: 16.32%, GS4: 2.36% and GS5: 0.53%. Production and other welfare data were collected for each flock after slaughter. Higher gait scores were associated with increased hock burn score (P<0.02), increased footpad dermatitis score (P<0.01), reduced bird cleanliness score (P<0.01) and peat litter (P<0.01). Although not statistically significant, there was a tendency for increased flock gait score being associated with wet litter (P=0.07). In addition, condemnations at postmortem inspection were associated with increasing gait scores (P<0.05), indicating that at least a portion of the lameness cases display pathological changes on the carcasses. In conclusion, 19%of the birds showed moderate-to-severe lameness, which was associated with several production or health and welfare observations including feather cleanliness and condemnations as unfit for human consumption at slaughter. Although stocking density and growth rate are already known key factors for lameness, associations of lameness with hock burns, footpad dermatitis and cleanliness of the birds suggest that a suboptimal physical environment (e.g. litter- and air quality) may be detrimental to leg health. Further studies are needed to explore these associations in more detail.

Cell-based meat, also called ‘clean’, lab, synthetic or in vitro meat, has attracted much media interest recently. Consumer demand for cellular meat production derives principally from concerns over environment and animal welfare, while secondary considerations include consumer and public health aspects of animal production, and food security. The present limitations to cellular meat production include the identification of immortal cell lines, availability of cost-effective, bovine-serum-free growth medium for cell proliferation and maturation, scaffold materials for cell growth, scaling up to an industrial level, regulatory and labelling issues and at what stage mixing of myo-, adipo- and even fibrocytes can potentially occur. Consumer perceptions that cell-based meat production will result in improvements to animal welfare and the environment have been challenged, with the outcome needing to wait until the processes used in cell-based meat are close to a commercial reality. Challenges for cell-based meat products include the simulation of nutritional attributes, texture, flavour and mouthfeel of animal-derived meat products. There is some question over whether consumers will accept the technology, but likely there will be acceptance of cell-based meat products, in particular market segments. Currently, the cost of growth media, industry scale-up of specific components of the cell culture process, intellectual property sharing issues and regulatory hurdles mean that it will likely require an extended period for cellular meat to be consistently available in high-end restaurants and even longer to be available for the mass market. The progress in plant-based meat analogues is already well achieved, with products such as the ImpossibleTM Burger and other products already available. These developments may make the development of cellular meat products obsolete. But the challenges remain of mimicking not only the nutritional attributes, flavour, shape and structure of real meat, but also the changes in regulation and labelling.

Nutritional strategies to mitigate the negative effects of heat stress on animal welfare and productivity often involve changes in ration formulation. However, cattle commonly sort their ration in favour of certain components, and it is not clear how feed sorting responds to heat stress. This study investigated the association between heat stress and feed sorting behaviour. Lactating Holstein dairy cows (n = 32; parity = 2.8±1.2; mean±SD) were housed in a free stall barn and milked 3×/day. Cows were fed individually using the Calan Broadbent Feeding System and offered ad libitum access to a total mixed ration (containing on a dry matter basis: 3.3% ryegrass hay, 16.5% ryegrass baleage, 24.7% corn silage, 11.1% brewers grains, 19.7% ground corn, 19.8% concentrate and 4.9% protein/mineral supplement), provided 1×/day. Beginning at 186±60 days in milk, cows were exposed to either: heat stress conditions (HT; n = 15) (average temperature–humidity index: 77.6), or evaporative cooling (CL; n = 17), consisting of misters and fans over the freestall and feed bunks. Data were collected during a 4-day baseline period, and two 4-day experimental periods: starting at 10 days after implementing treatments (defined as acute heat stress for HT cows), and at 62 days after implementing treatments (defined as chronic heat stress for HT cows). Daily feed intake and physiological responses to heat stress (body temperature, respiration rate) were recorded. Samples of fresh and refused feed were collected daily from individual cows for particle size analysis. The particle size separator had three screens (19, 8 and 1.18 mm) and a bottom pan, resulting in 4 fractions (long, medium, short and fine particles). Feed sorting was calculated as the actual intake of each particle size fraction expressed as a percentage of the predicted intake of that fraction. During both heat stress periods, HT cows sorted for long particles more than CL cows (105.0% v. 100.6%; SE = 1.1). During acute heat stress, HT cows sorted to a greater extent than CL cows against medium and short particles, whereas sorting of these fractions did not differ during chronic heat stress. Body temperature and respiration rate were associated across treatments with the extent of sorting for long particles and against short particles during acute heat stress. These results suggest that feed sorting is particularly influenced during acute heat stress, and that sorting for longer particles may increase in heat stress.

The gastrointestinal tract (GIT) is an interface between the external and internal milieus that requires continuous monitoring for nutrients or pathogens and toxic chemicals. The study of the physiological/molecular mechanisms, mediating the responses to the monitoring of the GIT contents, has been referred to as chemosensory science. While most of the progress in this area of research has been obtained in laboratory rodents and humans, significant steps forward have also been reported in pigs. The objective of this review was to update the current knowledge on nutrient chemosensing in pigs in light of recent advances in humans and laboratory rodents. A second objective relates to informing the existence of nutrient sensors with their functionality, particularly linked to the gut peptides relevant to the onset/offset of appetite. Several cell types of the intestinal epithelium such as Paneth, goblet, tuft and enteroendocrine cells (EECs) contain subsets of chemosensory receptors also found on the tongue as part of the taste system. In particular, EECs show specific co-expression patterns between nutrient sensors and/or transceptors (transport proteins with sensing functions) and anorexigenic hormones such as cholecystokinin (CCK), peptide tyrosine tyrosine (PYY) or glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), amongst others. In addition, the administration of bitter compounds has an inhibitory effect on GIT motility and on appetite through GLP-1-, CCK-, ghrelin- and PYY-labelled EECs in the human small intestine and colon. Furthermore, the mammalian chemosensory system is the target of some bacterial metabolites. Recent studies on the human microbiome have discovered that commensal bacteria have developed strategies to stimulate chemosensory receptors and trigger host cellular functions. Finally, the study of gene polymorphisms related to nutrient sensors explains differences in food choices, food intake and appetite between individuals.

Wastewater discharge and agricultural activities may pose microbial risks to natural water sources. The impact of different sources can be assessed by water quality modelling. The aim of this study was to use hydrological and hydrodynamic models to illustrate the risk of exposing grazing animals to faecal pollutants in natural water sources, using three zoonotic faecal pathogens as model microbes and fictitious pastures in Sweden as examples. Microbial contamination by manure from fertilisation and grazing was modelled by use of a hydrological model (HYPE) and a hydrodynamic model (MIKE 3 FM), and microbial contamination from human wastewater was modelled by application of both models in a backwards process. The faecal pathogens Salmonella spp., verotoxin-producing Escherichia coli O157:H7 (VTEC) and Cryptosporidium parvum were chosen as model organisms. The pathogen loads on arable land and pastures were estimated based on pathogen concentration in cattle faeces, herd prevalence and within-herd prevalence. Contamination from human wastewater discharge was simulated by estimating the number of pathogens required from a fictitious wastewater discharge to reach a concentration high enough to cause infection in cattle using the points on the fictitious pastures as their primary source of drinking water. In the scenarios for pathogens from animal sources, none of the simulated concentrations of salmonella exceeded the concentrations needed to infect adult cattle. For VTEC, most of the simulated concentrations exceeded the concentration needed to infect calves. For C. parvum, all the simulated concentrations exceeded the concentration needed to infect calves. The pathogen loads needed at the release points for human wastewater to achieve infectious doses for cattle were mostly above the potential loads of salmonella and VTEC estimated to be present in a 24-h overflow from a medium-size Swedish wastewater treatment plant, while the required pathogen loads of C. parvum at the release points were below the potential loads of C. parvum in a 24-h wastewater overflow. Most estimates in this study assume a worst-case scenario. Controlling zoonotic infections at herd level prevents environmental contamination and subsequent human exposure. The potential for infection of grazing animals with faecal pathogens has implications for keeping animals on pastures with access to natural water sources. As the infectious dose for most pathogens is more easily reached for calves than for adult animals, and young calves are also the main shedders of C. parvum, keeping young calves on pastures adjacent to natural water sources is best avoided.

The gut is composed of a single layer of intestinal epithelial cells and plays important roles in the digestion and absorption of nutrients, immune and barrier functions and amino acid metabolism. Weaning stress impairs piglet intestinal epithelium structural and functional integrities, which results in reduced feed intake, growth rates and increased morbidity and mortality. Several measures are needed to maintain swine gut development and growth performance after weaning stress. A large body of evidence indicates that, in weaning piglets, glutamine, a functional amino acid, may improve growth performance and intestinal morphology, reduce oxidative damage, stimulate enterocyte proliferation, modulate cell survival and death and enhance intestinal paracellular permeability. This review focuses on the effects of glutamine on intestinal health in piglets. The aim is to provide evidentiary support for using glutamine as a feed additive to alleviate weaning stress.

Sheep blowfly strike (ovine cutaneous myiasis) is a widespread economic and welfare problem in sheep husbandry in many parts of the world. Strike incidence is determined by a complex interaction of fly abundance, host susceptibility and climate, combined with farmer husbandry and intervention strategies. Sheep farmers adopt a range of approaches to the type and timing of the management used for the control of blowfly strike, the rational basis for which is often not robust. Here a deterministic model, based on existing data relating to fly abundance, seasonal risk and strike incidence, is used to compare the variable costs associated with different strike management strategies. The model shows that not employing prophylactic treatment is the lowest cost strategy only where strike risk is low. In all other circumstances, prophylactic treatment incurs lower costs than not doing so, because the deaths associated with strike outweigh the costs of prophylactic treatment. Lamb treatment, in particular, has a substantial effect on strike and cost reduction, since lambs are the most abundant age-class of animals and are at the highest risk over the period when fly abundance is the greatest. Early-season treatment of ewes before shearing is also an important component of the lowest cost strategies, particularly when the blowfly season is extended. While the rational choice of the most appropriate strike management strategy is essential in the context of farm economics, welfare considerations lend added importance to treatment decisions that reduce strike incidence.

At a global level, dairy cow production systems (DCPS) are important sources of nourishment and profits, but they generate environmental impacts such as overexploitation of different resources including water, lands and fossil energy. Quantification of water and carbon footprint to define mitigation strategies and a more rational use of natural resources, is a reiterated claim. The aim of this study was to perform an economic evaluation of the environmental impact of the DCPS from the Comarca Lagunera, Mexico (24°N, 102°W, 220 mm, hot-semiarid climate) We contrasted the economic value (EV) generated by the DCPS with respect to the economic costs (EC) due to the greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) and the water footprint (WFP) of this DCPS. While quantifications of GHGE considered those proposed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the WFP involved the use of blue, gray and green water by the DCPS and related activities. Quantification of the EC of WFP considered an international average price of water. In the year 2017, the Comarca Lagunera registered a dairy cow inventory of 493 144 heads, with 227 142 lactating cows, which produced 2386 million liters of milk per year with an annual average EV of €525.3 million. The EC (€, millions) generated by the GHGE and WFP were €311.8 and €11 980.7, respectively, with a total EC of € 12 292.5 million. When the EV of milk production and the total environmental EC are compared, the contrast demonstrates not only the noteworthy environmental impact but also the significant and senseless biological and EC. In addition, having a large dairy cow concentration creates pollution concerns and the DCPS transfers both nutrients and water resources from an ecologically vulnerable arid region. Therefore, some mitigation strategies such as, better cow genotype, feed and manure management combined with the production of forages and grains in a different geographical region are suggested to promote an optimum use of water in order to uphold the social, economic and biologic sustainability of the Comarca Lagunera, Mexico.

Gaining a deeper understanding into the underlying mechanisms associated with intestinal function and immunity during the weaning transition is critical to help shed new light into applied nutrition approaches to improve piglet performance and health during this critical life-stage transition. The transient anorexia triggered at weaning leads to compromised intestinal barrier function and a localized inflammatory response. Considering barrier function, specific nutrient fractions appear to have a significant impact on the development and function of the immune and microbial systems around weaning. Understanding the specific impact of nutrients in the small intestine and hindgut is important for helping to bring more focus and consistency to nutritional approaches to support health and immunity during the weaning transition period. The challenge continues to be how to translate these modes of action into practical and scalable approaches for swine nutrition. We will focus specifically on practical nutritional approaches to influence intestinal immunity through lipid, protein and antioxidant nutrition.

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology offers a real-time solution to monitor behavioral responses of individual animals to various stimuli, which provides crucial implications on farm management and animal well-being. The objectives of this study were to (1) develop and describe an ultra-high frequency radio frequency identification (UHF-RFID) system for continuously monitoring feeding and drinking behaviors of individual broilers in group settings; and (2) validate the performance of the UHF-RFID system against video analysis in determining the instantaneous bird number (IBN) and time spent (TS) at feeder and drinker. The UHF-RFID system consisted of cable-tie tags, antennas, a reader and a data acquisition (DAQ) system. The antennas generated electromagnetic fields where tags were detected and registered by the DAQ system. Electromagnetic fields of the antennas were modified to cover areas of concern (i.e. tube feeders and nipple drinkers) through a series of system evaluations and customizations including tag sensitivity test, power adjustment, radio wave shielding, and assessment of interference by add-ons (e.g. plastic wraps for protecting antennas and an empty carton box for zoning out broilers) and feed/feeder. System validation was performed in two experimental rooms, each with 60 tagged broilers. The results showed that the max reading distances of tags with an identical manufacturer’s specification were markedly different, indicating large variations in sensitivity among the tags. Desired electromagnetic fields could be achieved by adjusting the power supplied to antennas and by partially shielding antennas with customized stainless steel sheets. The protection materials and fully loaded feeder had little effect on electromagnetic fields of the antennas. The accuracies of the UHF-RFID system for determining IBN and TS were, respectively, 92.5±4.2% and 99.0±1.2% by the feeder antennas and 94.7±4.2% and 93.7±6.9% by the drinker antennas. It is concluded that the UHF-RIFD system can accurately detect and record feeding and drinking behaviors of individual broilers in group settings and thus is a useful tool for investigating impacts of resource allocations and management practices on these behaviors.

Grains rich in starch constitute the primary source of energy for both pigs and humans, but there is incomplete understanding of physiological mechanisms that determine the extent of digestion of grain starch in monogastric animals including pigs and humans. Slow digestion of starch to produce glucose in the small intestine (SI) leads to undigested starch escaping to the large intestine where it is fermented to produce short-chain fatty acids. Glucose generated from starch provides more energy than short-chain fatty acids for normal metabolism and growth in monogastrics. While incomplete digestion of starch leads to underutilised feed in pigs and economic losses, it is desirable in human nutrition to maintain consistent body weight in adults. Undigested nutrients reaching the ileum may trigger the ileal brake, and fermentation of undigested nutrients or fibre in the large intestine triggers the colonic brake. These intestinal brakes reduce the passage rate in an attempt to maximise nutrient utilisation, and lead to increased satiety that may reduce feed intake. The three physiological mechanisms that control grain digestion and feed intake are: (1) gastric emptying rate; (2) interplay of grain digestion and passage rate in the SI controlling the activation of the ileal brake; and (3) fermentation of undigested nutrients or fibre in the large intestine activating the colonic brake. Fibre plays an important role in influencing these mechanisms and the extent of their effects. In this review, an account of the physiological mechanisms controlling the passage rate, feed intake and enzymatic digestion of grains is presented: (1) to evaluate the merits of recently developed methods of grain/starch digestion for application purposes; and (2) to identify opportunities for future research to advance our understanding of how the combination of controlled grain digestion and fibre content can be manipulated to physiologically influence satiety and food intake.

The commercially available collar device MooMonitor+ was evaluated with regards to accuracy and application potential for measuring grazing behavior. These automated measurements are crucial as cows feed intake behavior at pasture is an important parameter of animal performance, health and welfare as well as being an indicator of feed availability. Compared to laborious and time-consuming visual observation, the continuous and automated measurement of grazing behavior may support and improve the grazing management of dairy cows on pasture. Therefore, there were two experiments as well as a literature analysis conducted to evaluate the MooMonitor+ under grazing conditions. The first experiment compared the automated measurement of the sensor against visual observation. In a second experiment, the MooMonitor+ was compared to a noseband sensor (RumiWatch), which also allows continuous measurement of grazing behavior. The first experiment on n = 12 cows revealed that the automated sensor MooMonitor+ and visual observation were highly correlated as indicated by the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient (rs) = 0.94 and concordance correlation coefficient (CCC) = 0.97 for grazing time. An rs-value of 0.97 and CCC = 0.98 was observed for rumination time. In a second experiment with n = 12 cows over 24-h periods, a high correlation between the MooMonitor+ and the RumiWatch was observed for grazing time as indicated by an rs-value of 0.91 and a CCC-value of 0.97. Similarly, a high correlation was observed for rumination time with an rs-value of 0.96 and a CCC-value of 0.99. While a higher level of agreement between the MooMonitor+ and both visual observation and RumiWatch was observed for rumination time compared to grazing time, the overall results showed a high level of accuracy of the collar device in measuring grazing and rumination times. Therefore, the collar device can be applied to monitor cow behavior at pasture on farms. With regards to the application potential of the collar device, it may not only be used on commercial farms but can also be applied to research questions when a data resolution of 15 min is sufficient. Thus, at farm level, the farmer can get an accurate and continuous measurement of grazing behavior of each individual cow and may then use those data for decision-making to optimize the animal management.

Feeding big round-bales in round-bale feeders are known to reduce labor and costs. However, one disadvantage is the high feed wastage. The aim of these experiments was therefore to investigate the effect of feeder design, type of roughage and size of round-bales on feed wastage in sheep. Four round-bale feeders (Diagonal Rail Sheep Circular Feeder (RD), Knarrhult Flexible Round-Bale Feeder (KR), Telemark Round-Bale Feeder (TR) and Standard Sheep Circular Ring Feeder (RV)) were distributed into four identical experimental pens and used in both experiments. In Experiment 1, two types of roughages were used; Roughage 1: low-quality, grass silage harvested at late stage of maturity with dry matter (DM) content of 560 g/kg and Roughage 2: high-quality, hay harvested at an early stage of maturity with DM content of 738 g/kg. In Experiment 2, ewes were offered hay harvested at the late stage of maturity with DM content of 766 g/kg as half and whole round-bales. In both experiments, four groups of 10 ewes of the Norwegian White breed were rotated between the experimental pens and each treatment lasted for 4 days. Feed wastage (roughage on the ground surrounding the feeder) was collected daily. The amount of feed wastage was generally high. The type of roughage (Experiment 1) had a large effect on feed wastage (P < 0.001), where Roughage 1 had a mean feed wastage of 1.88 kg DM/day per ewe and Roughage 2 had 0.48 kg DM/day per ewe. When Roughage 1 was provided, it was evident that the ewes pulled out the long fibrous stems of the feeders and left them as wastage while selecting the leaves. This was not the case for Roughage 2. When feeding half round-bales (Experiment 2), the mean feed wastage was 1.50 kg DM/day per ewe compared to 2.88 kg DM/day per ewe when feeding whole round-bales (P < 0.001). This is probably due to the ewes spending more time eating with their heads inside the feeder when fed half round-bales (P < 0.001) and thus dropped more of the potential wastage inside the feeder. Less feed inside the feeder may also be the reason that feed wastage decreased gradually from Day 1 to Day 4 in both experiments (P < 0.001). Feeder design also had a significant impact on feed wastage (P < 0.001). We conclude that providing early harvested roughage and feeding half round-bales significantly reduced feed wastage.

Recently, great attention has been directed towards the use of essential oils from aromatic plants as antimicrobials and antioxidant in food matrix. Fish is well known to be a high perishable food. Indeed, fish muscle is susceptible to suffer protein and lipid oxidation during frozen storage, which can lead to the development of softening and undesirable volatile molecules. However, the possible inclusion of essential oils in fish feed for preserving fish flesh quality during storage is still unclear. For this reason, the potential protective effects of the incorporation of a dietary essential oil constituted by eucalyptol, carvacrol and thymol, to rainbow trout’s (Oncorhynchus mykiss) feed were here investigated. Frozen fish fillets resulting from trout fed the essential oil showed a significant protection of specific muscle proteins against the oxidation produced during frozen storage at –10ºC for 6 months. Essential oil-enriched feed decreased carbonylation of specific myofibrillar (α-actinins-1 and -3, myosin heavy chain, myomesin-1, pyruvate kinase, tropomyosin, troponin-T and actin) and sarcoplasmic proteins (glycogen phosphorylase, creatine kinase, fructose-bisphosphate aldolase A and phosphoglycerate mutase 2). Essential oils also increased actin stability and preserved muscle protein solubility and water holding capacity. In addition, essential oils inhibited the onset of lipid oxidation and rancidity, resulting in frozen fish with superior textural quality and sensory scores. As a final conclusion, the inclusion of essential oils in farmed rainbow trout feed is largely efficient for increasing fish quality and shelf life during frozen storage, mainly through a selective-antioxidant effect on muscle proteins.

Finding insect meals as alternative sources of poultry feedstuffs is a recent research topic; therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate the effects of defatted black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens L., HI) larvae meal in broiler chicken diets on the carcass characteristics and meat quality parameters, proximate composition, fatty acid profile and the heavy metal content of the breast meat. Four dietary treatments were designed: a control diet (HI0) and three experimental diets (HI5, HI10 and HI15), corresponding to 50, 100 and 150 g/kg HI inclusion levels, respectively. The inclusion of 50, 100 and 150 g HI meal per kg feed supply 16.56%, 33.01% and 49.63% of required crude protein. The broilers were slaughtered at day 35, the carcasses were weighed and the breast muscles were excised from 16 birds per each feeding group (two birds per replicate pens) and used for meat quality evaluation. Linear and quadratic responses were observed, for increasing HI meal levels, in the live and carcass weights (maximum for HI10). As far as the colour of the breast meat is concerned, redness (a*) showed a linear response, while yellowness (b*) linearly decreased with increasing HI meal levels (minimum for HI15). As the HI larvae meal increased in the diets, the moisture content linearly decreased and the protein content increased. The total saturated fatty acid and total monounsaturated fatty acid proportions rose to the detriment of the polyunsaturated fatty acid fraction. The HI larvae meal, used in the current study, represents a valuable protein source for broiler chickens when included by up to 100 g/kg in their diets, as an improved slaughtering performance was observed without any detrimental effects on meat quality parameters or heavy metal residues in the meat.