Identifies animal nutritional needs and gathers together data universally acknowledged as being relevant and beneficial for a species. The reader is shown how to economically produce suitable feed ingredients and blend them in the most efficient manner.

Animals are biological transformers of dietary matter and energy to produce high-quality foods and wools for human consumption and use. Mammals, birds, fish, and shrimp require nutrients to survive, grow, develop, and reproduce. As an interesting, dynamic, and challenging discipline in biological sciences, animal nutrition spans an immense range from chemistry, biochemistry, anatomy and physiology to reproduction, immunology, pathology, and cell biology. Thus, nutrition is a foundational subject in livestock, poultry and fish production, as well as the rearing and health of companion animals. This book entitled Principles of Animal Nutrition consists of 13 chapters. Recent advances in biochemistry, physiology and anatomy provide the foundation to understand how nutrients are utilized by ruminants and non-ruminants. The text begins with an overview of the physiological and biochemical bases of animal nutrition, followed by a detailed description of chemical properties of carbohydrates, lipids, protein, and amino acids. It advances to the coverage of the digestion, absorption, transport, and metabolism of macronutrients, energy, vitamins, and minerals in animals. To integrate the basic knowledge of nutrition with practical animal feeding, the book continues with discussion on nutritional requirements of animals for maintenance and production, as well as the regulation of food intake by animals. Finally, the book closes with feed additives, including those used to enhance animal growth and survival, improve feed efficiency for protein production, and replace feed antibiotics. While the classical and modern concepts of animal nutrition are emphasized throughout the book, every effort has been made to include the most recent progress in this ever-expanding field, so that readers in various biological disciplines can integrate biochemistry and physiology with nutrition, health, and disease in mammals, birds, and other animal species (e.g., fish and shrimp). All chapters clearly provide the essential literature related to the principles of animal nutrition, which should be useful for academic researchers, practitioners, beginners, and government policy makers. This book is an excellent reference for professionals and a comprehensive textbook for senior undergraduate and graduate students in animal science, biochemistry, biomedicine, biology, food science, nutrition, veterinary medicine, and related fields.

* covers the essentials of nutrition in an impartial and lighthearted way * user-friendly layout makes animal nutrition interesting and fun, helping students easily understand the principles of nutrition * includes excellent section on the nutritional needs of small furries with previously unpublished material * essential reading for every veterinary undergraduate and veterinary nurse * deals with all areas covered in the City & Guilds Small Animal Nutrition Certificate

The INRA Feeding System for Ruminants has been renewed to better address emerging challenges for animal nutrition: prevision of productive responses, product quality, animal health and emissions to the environment, in a larger extent of breeding contexts. The new system is mainly built from meta-analyses of large data bases, and modelling. The dietary supply model accounts for digestive interactions and flows of individual nutrients, so that feed values depend on the final ration. Animal requirements account for variability in metabolic efficiency. Various productive and non-productive animal responses to diets are quantified. This book presents the whole system for dairy and meat, large and small ruminant production, including specificities for tropical and Mediterranean areas. The first two sections present biological concepts and equations (with their field of application and statistical accuracy) used to predict intake (including at grazing) and nutrient supply (Section 1), animal’s requirements and multiple responses to diets (Section 2). They apply to net energy, metabolisable protein and amino acids, water, minerals and vitamins. Section 3 presents the use of concepts and equations in rationing with two purposes: (1) diet calculation for a given performance objective; and (2) prediction of the multiple responses of animal to diet changes. Section 4 displays the tables of feed values, and their prevision. All the equations and concepts are embedded in the fifth version of INRAtion® software for practical use.

Students in animal science, industry personnel involved in the feeding of animals, and professionals working for feed-mixing companies will all benefit from this current, comprehensive package - a text on the economic and nutritional aspects of feed formulations that optimize nutritional content while minimizing costs. Animal Feed Formulation applies a well-tested, easy-to-use computer program called UFFDA that illustrates the principles of least-cost food formulation. Developed in a cooperative effort by the Departments of Poultry Science and Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Georgia, UFFDA is menu-driven software that has the editing capabilities of a spreadsheet program for altering the ingredient and nutrient matrix. The book begins by solving a simple ration-balancing problem, providing step-by-step instructions with the computer program that any user - even one without computer training - can readily follow. It then discusses specific feed formulation techniques in terms of their practical applications and economic implications. Included are such techniques as sensitivity analysis, parametric cost and nutrient ranging, optimum-density formulation, multi-blending, and risk analysis, among others. Applying these and other techniques using the special features of UFFDA, users can select the proper ingredients, adjust proportions among nutrients, determine which feeds might require scarce ingredients, consider the risks involved in dealing with ingredients with below-average compositions, and ultimately determine the costs and nutritional content of various feed formulations. The program can be applied to determining feed formulations for any animal, including sheep, beef and dairy cattle, swine, turkeys, broilers, catfish, and horses. Practitioners who are growing animals will be able to maximize the nutritional content of their feed while keeping costs down. Professionals working in feed-mixing companies will be able to maximize profits by offering products composed of low-cost ingredients that are also of good nutritional value. Students will gain a firm background in nutritional and economic concepts, insight into how to apply them to practical problems, and an understanding of the way good nutrition and good value can be achieved by applying the latest computer technology.