With the ban on the use of mammalian protein in the EU and the implementation of restrictive use of fishmeal in animal diets coupled with the increased legislative pressures to reduce nitrogen output from animal production, there is an increased requirement for an alternative protein source, which is lower in overall crude protein percentage while still meeting the animal’s optimum amino acid requirement. Natupro is an alternative nutritionally enhanced GMO free vegetable protein, which carefully matches all of the above criteria, as it is low in crude protein (36%) with a controlled release of amino acid mechanism (Natupro amino acid analysis Table 2). Glucosamine is the inspiration behind Natupro, the combination of sugars and amine moites gave rise to the concept of a sugar carrier, which is the mechanism Natupro uses for the consistent controlled release of amino acids over time. The objective of this current experiment is to access the effect of inclusion of Natupro in the grower pigs diet on nitrogen retention, utilisation, excretion and digestibility.

Ammonia and volatile fatty acids are significant sources of pollution. In wheat, xylans predominate as the primary non-starch polysaccharide while in barley β-glucan predominates. β-glucans have also been shown to support the growth of lactobacilli and bifidobacteria. By increasing bacterial activity in the hindgut, the pattern of nitrogen excretion and VFA production may be augmented. Exogenous enzymes may increase nutrient digestibility by degrading the β-glucan. It is hypothesised that the addition of an exogenous enzyme mix to a barley-based diet would result in a benefit in terms of increased nutrient digestibility however; this benefit may be reduced by an associated increase in ammonia emissions.

Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites produced by fungi under certain stress periods (Smith and Seddon 1998). When ingested, mycotoxins cause insidious losses, ill thrift and reduced disease resistance. Zearalenone is known to cause hyperestrogesium in pigs and hence a reduction in fertility in both sows and boars can occur (Binder 2004). Certain mycotoxins such as zearalenone (ZEA) and deoxinivalenol (DON) are produced by fungi of the fusarium species on crops in the field. Fusarium pseudograminearum (Crown Rot) produces both DON and ZEA in decreasing levels up the tiller of winter cereals (Blaney et al. 1987). Most studies carried out so far analysed the occurrence of mycotoxins in the grain and less is known about the prevalence of mycotoxins in the straw of the crop. Housing of sows during gestation on straw is becoming a favoured production system due to environmental and public perception pressures. The intake of straw by weaners on straw based systems has been found to account for 11.5% of total feed intake (Barneveld et al. 2004), such that there could be a considerable risk for increased ingestion of mycotoxins in animals on straw based systems. The objective of this study was to investigate the occurrence of mycotoxins in straw used for deep litter in Australian deep litter pig production systems.

The post-weaning phase is a critical period in pig growth. The transition from sow milk to solid plant or animal proteins together with the physiological development of the intestinal tract can sometimes lead to digestive disorders depressing growth and impacting upon the lifetime performance of the pig herd. Lowering feed protein level or changing the type of protein offered appears as a practical solution to decrease the incidence and severity of digestive disorders leading to diarrhoea. It is crucial that in reducing crude protein levels that the balance of amino acids are maintained to meet the pigs requirement for growth. Fishmeal is often used in diets as a source of protein and amino acids. It also is said to be an aid to palatability. The objective of this experiment was to evaluate the performance of post-weaned piglets offered diets that differed in crude protein content and in protein source from weaning until 43 days post-weaning.

Fattening and slaughter value of fattening pigs and the dietetic properties of pork depend, among others, on sex, breed, crossbreeding scheme, and age and body weight at slaughter (Weatherup et al. 1997). The degree of carcass meatiness and meat quality depend largely on the breed of the crossed boars (Davey and Bereskin, 1978). The aim of the present experiment was to analyse the effect of crossbreeding, slaughter weight and feeding on the slaughter value and meat quality of fattening pigs.

There is some concern that meat and eating quality can suffered as a result of dietary CLA supplementation through the influence on fatty acids metabolism and it content in meat. CLA addition to pigs’ diet requires simultaneous addition of antioxidative vitamins’ taking part in stabilization of double bonds of CLA inbuilt in phospholipids complex of cell membrane (Livisay et al., 2000).

Boar taint is a major meat quality defect, which affects about 10% of entire male pigs. It is due to an excessive accumulation of skatole and androstenone in adipose tissue. One of the reasons for accumulation of these compounds is a low rate of their metabolism. Androstenone is metabolised in liver via the enzyme 3-beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (HSD). This enzyme is well characterised in the testis, where it participates in the synthesis of steroids, while its properties in liver are unknown. The aim of the present study was to characterise and compare properties of HSD from pig liver versus pig testis when metabolising androstenone.

Toughness is a determinant of meat quality and a common cause of unacceptability in meat products. Calpain proteases are believed to be involved in meat tenderisation by post mortem degradation of myofibrillar proteins (Sensky et al., 2001). However other proteases are likely to contribute to the proteolysis involved in meat-conditioning (Sentandreu et al., 2002). Caspases are proteases involved in protein degradation in apoptosis. Like calpains caspases are activated early in pathological events associated with hypoxia/ischaemia, which is not dissimilar to the hypoxic conditions in muscle after slaughter. Caspases specifically cleave a number of proteins that are also targeted by calpains during post mortem proteolysis and also degrade the calpain-specific inhibitor calpastatin. The caspase system has a hierarchy of initiating isoforms (such as caspases 8 and 12) which activate effector caspases (such as 3 and 7) that cleave specific substrates. Caspases are regulated by inhibitors such as apoptosis repressor with caspase recruitment domain (ARC). Our hypothesis is that caspase activity may contribute to early post mortem proteolysis and tenderisation, similar to the calpain system. The aim of this study was to characterise the caspase system in various porcine skeletal muscles.

Phosphorus and calcium deficiency in horses represents an important factor responsible for the low equine production in Brazil. The basic mechanisms of P and Ca metabolism differ substantially among species. Regulation of P and Ca metabolism is less well understood in horses than in others species. With the use of the isotopic dilution technique is possible to evaluate the metabolism for this mineral. The aim of the present experiment was to study the effect of different Ca levels in the diet on P and Ca metabolism in horses.

It has been shown that horses and ponies at pasture usually graze for 15-17 hours per day, and consume between 16 and 33g dry matter (DM) /kg live weight per day, depending on animal size and physiological status. However, many predominantly stabled horses have restricted access to pasture, often only 1-3 hours/day. There is no information on voluntary food intake (VFI) of horses under such regimens. Therefore the aim of this pilot study was to determine the voluntary intake of fresh herbage by ponies when their access to pasture was restricted.

The in vitro gas production is a widely used technique for the evaluation of feeds for ruminant animals. Although it measures rate and extension of gas production during feed fermentation in culture medium, rumen inoculum from operated animals (fistulae) is required. Faecal microorganisms function similarly to those in the rumen; they decompose feed and do not require operated animals. The objective of the present experiment was to compare rumen liquor and equine faeces as source of inoculum in the gas production technique.

In vitro and in situ techniques for research on ruminants are currently much in focus. Since they have good correlations with in vivo data, they are feasible alternatives to predict the nutrition rates of feeds and may be applied in equine research on in vivo apparent digestibility. On the other hand, the disadvantage of these methods is due to the fact that fistulated animals are required to obtain the inoculum. Theodorou et al., (1994) developed an extremely promising gas production technique to assess feeds for ruminants, but still require rumen inoculum obtained from operated animals. Faecal microorganisms function similarly to those in the rumen and in the large intestine of equines. The objective this experiment was to compare rumen liquor and equine faeces as inoculum to determine in vitro digestibility of equine feeds.

Some herbaceous browses have shown a dry tolerance and had been used as animal feed. However, some of those plants have anti nutritional compounds such as tannins that can interfere on intake and digestibility. Tannins are polyphenolic compounds originated from the secondary metabolism of the plant as protection against insects, birds and as a result of drought, temperature or soil fertility. The objectives of this work were to evaluate the level and variation of tannins in important browses from the semi-arid of Brazil and to investigate the effects of different treatments (oven-, shade- and sun-drying and treatment with urea) on phenolics compounds.

The genetic evaluation of dairy cows is based primarily on milk production and its constituents. Many models have been developed and evaluated in order to estimate total milk yield (CTMY) and other characteristics of lactation curves. Frequently, the models are based on complex mathematical equations and their use demands a huge computational effort. The development of simple models as early predictors of TMY with a reasonable accuracy is important. The objective of this research was to compare the biological model described by Pollott (2000) with two linear models.

In New Zealand, crossbreeding is largely used by dairy farmers. Currently an important proportion of cows are crossbreds, mostly Holstein-Friesians (HF) x Jersey (JE). Crossbred bulls are currently being progeny tested in New Zealand. Actually, more than one third of the replacement dairy heifers are crossbred animals (Montgomerie, 2002). However currently available methods to model genetic contributions of purebreds to crossbreds take breed differences only partly into account and therefore do not permit an optimal use of crossbred data. The first objective of our study was to allow the modelling of different additive breeding values according to parental breeds to define overall additive breeding values as a function of breed composition.

Modern genetic selection programs identify families with superior genetic merit and reproductive technologies which are used to disperse these genotypes throughout the population increasing relationships between animals (Weigel, 2001). However matings of related individuals unavoidably lead to inbred offspring. One of the main economic consequences of inbreeding is inbreeding depression, the reduction of the mean phenotypic value for economically important quantitative traits. The objectives of this study were to use an advanced algorithm to compute inbreeding and to estimate inbreeding depression for traits and indexes that are in the genetic evaluations for Walloon dairy cattle (production traits, type traits and somatic cell score (SCS)).

The Taiwanese government assists their dairy industry by supporting domestic prices through a combination of import restrictions, price support, government purchasing and subsidised disposal of surpluses. As a result, dairy production in Taiwan is insulated from international price trends. However, these dairy assistance policies can not protect the domestic price after Taiwan joins the World Trade Organisation (WTO) at the end of 2001. To access the impact of an open market, linear programming (LP) is applied to model the influence of changing feed price and milk value on dairy farm profitability.

Reproductive performance has a large influence on production and profitability. In Taiwan, survey data shows an average number of lactations of 2.87 with 67% being culled before their third lactation and a first calving age (CA) of 30 months (Chang, 1988). In order to indicate the impact of reproductive performance and calving pattern on revenue, linear programming (LP) is applied to model the effect of both replacement rate (RR) and CA.

Optimising heifer growth rates is an essential component of dairy replacement management in order to ensure sustainable heifer replacement stocks. Continuous evaluation of the growth pattern of heifers in a herd may be used to identify particular effects of nutritional management and the environment. Body weight is considered the most useful indicator of a heifer’s growth rate, both in practice and experiment work, along with body measurements reflecting the skeletal growth of heifer. The aims of this research are to investigate: 1) body trait : age relationships, 2) ratio of body measurements to body weight, and 3) to predict body weight based on body measurements of Holstein heifers in Indonesia.

The suckler beef industry in Northern Ireland comprises many differing dam breeds and breed crosses. However, there is a paucity of data on the influence of dam breed on parameters such as carcass weight, fatness and conformation, and on factors affecting management of the herd (e.g. dystocia and fertility). The latter are particularly important in view of the increasing number of part time beef farmers in Northern Ireland. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the influence of dam breed on production characteristics of the suckler herd in Northern Ireland.