The genetic merit of the UK dairy herd is increasing rapidly. With cows of higher milk yield potential and higher nutrient requirements, the level of concentrate feeding is likely to increase. Previous studies have shown little benefit with complete diet feeding with cows of medium genetic merit at moderate levels of concentrate feeding (Agnew and Mayne, 1992; Agnew, Mayne and Doherty, 1996). The objective of the present study was to compare offering a high level of concentrates (mean 11.1 kg DM/day) to high genetic merit cows, either separately from the silage using an out-of-parlour (OP) feeder or within a complete diet (CD) system).

Behavioural types in pigs have been demonstrated by Hessing et al. (1994) who suggested that differing coping strategies may be determined by genetic constitution. However Beattie et al. (1995) found that pigs reared in enriched environments behaved differently in an open field test compared with those reared in barren environments implicating an environmental influence in strategy development. The objective of this study was to investigate whether housing environment influences the coping strategy of growing pigs measured by behavioural and physiological responses.

The Welfare of Livestock Regulations 1994 specify a system of increasing space allowance for finishing pigs based on a series of weight bands (Figure 1). The width of the bands in the regulations, especially at the higher weights, impose a certain degree of inflexibility on the management of finishing pig accommodation. An alternative approach to specifying space allowance is to relate it to average pig live weight at any given time using an allometric equation (Petherick and Baxter, 1981). Based on this, Edwards et al. (1988) proposed A(m2)=0.030*M0.67(kg), to optimise performance on slats. The present study compares space allowance increments following this equation with the bands of the regulations, and its interactive effects with floor type and bedding on the welfare of finishing pigs.

Previous work has identified crushing to be the major cause of early piglet mortality (up to 80%) in a group farrowing system, with approximately half of the crushing deaths occurring when the sow lay down from a standing position (Marchant et al., 1996). The objectives of this study were to establish what other posture changes carried a high risk of piglet injury in a communal farrowing system during early lactation and also to determine what factors influenced the risk of piglet crushing during lying down.

Food restriction appears to be a contributory factor in the development of stereotypic behaviour in sows. The sustained feeding motivation following the ingestion of a small meal of concentrated food results in high levels of foraging in the post-prandial period. In the absence of a suitable foraging substrate to facilitate the expression of complex behaviours, foraging may be channelled into a limited number of highly repetitive behavioural sequences (Lawrence and Terlouw 1993). High fibre diets may mitigate the development of such behaviours (Brouns, Edwards and English 1994) by providing increased gut fill in the post-prandial period, thereby reducing foraging motivation and consequently the need for a foraging substrate. The aim of this study was to examine the interactive effects of a high fibre diet and the provision of straw on levels of stereotypic behaviour in sows.

Diets containing high concentrations of fish oils (which have high concentrations of the n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, eicosapentaenoic acid (20:5n-3) and docosahexaenoic acid (22:6n-3)) or linseed oil (which has a high concentration of the n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid ∝ linolenic acid (18:3n-3)) have been shown to decrease blood lipid concentrations compared to diets containing high concentrations of n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids. Recent evidence also suggests that a reduction in the n-6:n-3 ratio of fatty acids in the human diet is likely to reduce thrombogenesis and the incidence of cardiovascular disease. In view of the importance of n-6:n-3 fatty acid ratio in food the effect of forage:concentrate ratio in the diet of beef cattle on n-6:n-3 ratio in beef has been examined.

Previous research has demonstrated that dietary supplementation with high levels of die antioxidant vitamin E is effective in improving beef quality and shelf-life (Arnold et al., 1993). However, these animals did not have access to fresh forage which contains high levels of endogenous vitamin E and also higher concentrations of readily-oxidisable n-3 unsaturated fatty acids (Marmer et al, 1984). This study investigated the effectiveness of vitamin E in improving meat quality of grass finished cattle compared with those fed concentrates.

The reaction of thermal oxidation products of phospholipid fatty acids with other meat components is an important source of cooked meat flavour and odour (Mottram and Edwards, 1983) and preferences for meat from forage or concentrate finished beef have been attributed to differences in the feed fatty acids (Melton, 1990). Therefore modifying lipids to meet human dietary recommendations to raise the P:S and n-3:n-6 ratios of dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) is likely to affect meat quality. We have investigated the effect on eating quality, flavour volatiles and phospholipid fatty acid composition of feeding steers linseed, which is high in α-linolenic acid (18:3 n-3), and fish oil containing EPA (20:5 n-3) and DHA (22:6 n-3).

Measurement of muscle metabolite uptake may be approached by the technique of arterio-venous differences across the hindquarter, which contains large proportion of muscle, especially in double-muscled cattle. Muscle is an important site of amino acid catabolism (Goldberg and Chang, 1978). The extent of amino acid degradation may vary according to the time after feeding (Weijs, 1993). The aim of this experiment was to assess the changes in the kinetics of metabolite uptake across the hindquarter in Belgian Blue bulls fattened after a period of maintenance.

Insulin is believed to play a key role in the partitioning of nutrients towards fat and protein deposition. The biological effects of insulin are a function of plasma insulin concentration, insulin-receptor concentration and the affinity of the receptor. The number and affinity of insulin receptors on adipocytes differs between genetically lean and obese pigs (Camara and Mourot, 1996) while receptor number, but not affinity, was shown to differ in a variety of bovine muscles (Boge et al., 1995). The objective of the current work was to determine if insulin receptor affinity and number vary between the principal target tissues (i.e. liver, muscle and adipose tissue) in the bovine animal.

Five Charolais-cross steers were offered grass silage ad libitum from 18 months of age until slaughter, at 701± 22.9 kg, at a commercial abattoir. Samples of liver [L], of two skeletal muscles [Ml, M3] and of subcutaneous [S], omental [0]and renal [R] fats were taken as soon as possible after slaughter (typically <30min for L, M3, S and O and <45min for Mland R), wrapped and snap frozen in liquid nitrogen prior to storage at -70 °. Insulin receptors were partially purified by solubilising tissues in 1% Triton X-100 for 24 hours at 4 °C followed by centrifugation (100000 x g, lh, 4°) and affinity chromatography of the supernatants on 0.5 ml wheatgerm agglutinin Sepharose 6MB columns. Bound receptors were eluted from the column with 0.3M N-acetyl-D-glucosamine. Receptor binding was assessed using a tracer amount of A-14 125I-insulin (∼35 pM) and increasing concentrations of unlabelled insulin (0-10 μM) in a total volume of 150 μl of pH 7.4 buffer as described by Magri et al (1990).

Growth hormone (GH) is a vital component for the regulation of animal growth. The circulating levels of GH decrease with age in bull calves (McAndrews et al., 1993) and in steers (Verde and Trenkle, 1987), and are higher in large Simmental steers than in small Angus steers (Grigsby and Trenkle, 1986). Japanese Black cattle, known as Wagyu, is early-matured and small frame size, and has an ability to deposit the high amount of intramuscular fat. The present study was conducted to clarify the age-related changes of GH secretion and somatotroph function in Japanese Black steers, since the information about endocrine profiles of Japanese Black cattle has been scantly.

The costs associated with indoor finishing, i.e. ensiling grass, storage of silage and slurry, providing animal accommodation and disposal of slurry are substantial. Thus, where possible animals approaching slaughter should be finished at pasture rather than indoors. However, the seasonal decline in grass growth often results in insufficient grass in autumn to attain satisfactory performance with finishing animals. Finishing animals at pasture will involve less ensilage thereby permitting grass to accumulate on pastures as autumn approaches. Such grass could be supplemented with the concentrate allowance normally offered indoors. The objectives of this study were to determine the effect on performance of heifers of offering supplementary concentrates at pasture, and to compare pasture finishing with finishing on grass silage and concentrates.

The energy requirements of beef cows depend on their body size and milk production. Consequently, the optimum cow genotype will depend on the capability of the farming environment to produce forage if undue feeding of purchased supplements is to be avoided. In this study cows of two genotypes with differing genetic potentials for body size and milk production were each offered two levels of annual energy intake.

It has been suggested for many years that inclusion of fishmeal in diets for breeding sows gives improved reproductive performance, but there have been few experiments to objectively measure the effects of fishmeal inclusion. Recently, attention has focussed in many species on the possible beneficial effects of the long chain omega-3 fatty acids contained in fish oil on a number of aspects of reproduction, including embryo survival, gestation length, fetal growth and neonatal viability. This experiment was therefore carried out to measure the effect of feeding diets with or without inclusion of fishmeal with a high content of omega-3 fatty acids on sow reproductive performance.

Meishan synthetic (M) sows and gilts produce greater weight of weaned piglets and lose more backfat and body weight during lactation than White (W) breed types (Sinclair et al., 1996a). The increased litter weight and increased fat loss of M could be due to (1) M having more fat reserves than W at the start of lactation to support a higher level of milk production, (2) M being inherently more adapted than W to partition body reserves to milk production. Commercial objectives of the M breeding programmes include a reduction of backfat, so it is necessary to establish the importance of fat reserves in the maternal performance of the breeds. The objective of this experiment was to measure the consequences of manipulating body fat reserves at farrowing by nutritional means in the two breed types.

Piglets from a multisuckling system, which experienced disrupted suckling during the lactation period, had a higher feed intake following weaning and experienced less check in growth compared to weaned piglets from a conventional crate system (Wattanakul et al, 1995). To investigate the mechanisms underlying the improved post weaning performance of these piglets, the role of growth restriction resulting from disruption of suckling was assessed, under standardised environment conditions.

One way of improving the growth rate of piglets could be to provide a palatable diet with high nutritive value (Pluske et al., 1995). Several earlier studies have shown that this is possible by improving the piglet diet either by selecting ingredients or by processing the cereals in the diet (Hardy, 1992). An alternative could be to offer the piglets a milk replacer, in addition to a dry piglet feed, in order to make the transition to a complete dry feeding smoother. Recent data suggest that villus height and crypt depth are maintained after weaning in piglets when fed cows whole milk and that the capacity to absorb monosaccharides was increased (Pluske et al., 1996). The aim of the experiment was to study the effect of ad libitum access to milk replacer to piglets, in addition to dry piglet feed and sows milk, on the performance of piglets, slaughter pigs and sows.

Non-digestible oligosaccharides (NDOs), including fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS) and trans-galacto-oligosaccharides (TOS), are not digested by endogenous enzymes, but may be fermented by bacteria such as lactobacilli and bifidobacteria (Tomomatsu, 1994). Thus, dietary NDOs may alter fermentation characteristics of the microflora of the host. In this experiment, in vivo and in vitro fermentation characteristics of NDOs in weaner pigs were studied, using the cumulative gas production technique (Theodorou et al.,1994).

A NDO-free control diet (CON), with oatshuskmeal (OHM) as a fibre source, and this diet with 40 g FOS (FOS40) or TOS (TOS40) per kg (w/w against cellulose) was restrictedly fed for 7 weeks (2.6*Em) to 3 groups of four 35-day old individually housed weaner pigs. Total faeces were collected from day 13-18 to determine crude fibre digestibility. Pigs were fitted with a PVTC-cannula on day 21 (Van Leeuwen et al, 1991). Inocula for gas production were anaerobically prepared from faeces (day 14-16) and ileal chyme (day 33-35, via PVTC-cannula). Samples were diluted (1:4) with sterile saline and filtered through cheese cloth. Five ml filtrate were injected into airtight bottles, containing 80 ml growth medium and no substrate (BLA) or 0.25 g FOS, TOS or OHM as sole energy source.

Vegetable proteins, including soya-bean meal (SBM), can only be included in diets for newly-weaned piglets in restricted amounts as they can induce a transient local gut hypersensitivity. This hypersensitivity may be a causative factor in post-weaning diarrhoea. Previous studies have indicated a strong maternal influence on the response of piglets to SBM. The object of the current experiment was to assess more formally maternal influences on weaning performance of piglets

Europe has long been deficient in protein rich foodstuffs and relies heavily on imported soya bean meal for pig diets. Rape seed meal (RSM) represents an alternative protein source. However, nutrient availability in RSM is limited due to the presence of anti nutritional factors which may act on the nutrient themselves or cause a deleterious physiological effect on the animal. The major antinutritional factors found in RSM include glucosinolates and tannins. One method of destroying these antinutritional factors maybe by the use of heat treatment. The objective of these experiments were to examine the effect of extrusion cooking on the apparent nutrient digestibility of RSM and on the productive performance of finishing pigs fed increasing levels of both raw and extruded “00” RSM.