The animal meal prohibition as a protein source with low ruminal degradability in ruminant nutrition, creates the need to seek alternatives, as legume seeds, however, its protein, have a high degradability, which could generate losses of nitrogen in the rumen. Other problem in the legume seeds is the content of antinutritional factors such as protease inhibitors, tannins, phenolic compounds, lectins and some others, could affect the digestibility. One alternative to decrease the degradability of the protein and/or decrease the activity […]

Horses evolved consuming primarily fermentable forage carbohydrates, but forage diets have been traditionally supplemented with grain meals rich in starch and sugar in order to provide additional calories, protein and micronutrients. Starch and sugar are important for performance horses, but the consumption starch-rich meals may cause equine digestive and metabolic disorders. The critical capacity for preileal starch digestibility appears to be 0.35 to 0.4% but may be as little, depending on the source of starch. Small intestinal absorption of simple […]

Major gaps in knowledge on fish larval nutritional requirements still remain, what leads to high mortalities and quality problems in marine larviculture. This paper reviews a range of new tools, such as tracer studies, population genomics, nutritional programming, functional genomics and proteomics, as well as some examples of their present use, and potential future applications in the study of fish larvae nutrition.

This text revised some papers in literature about characteristics and use of conserved forages for horse feeding, considering animal behavior and outstanding the need of programs that could integrate the current knowledge of use, physiology, management and animal nutrition. A basic and critical nutritional condition for equine management is the availability of high quality forage for use as pasture or conserved as hay or silage. Most professional horse production systems adopt hay for animal feeding and this is why most […]

The equine is a non herbivore ruminant that is able to fully provide its nutritional need by the grass intake. Equines show the cecum and colon region plenty developed as their principal fermentation site. Such process either happens in the non glandular stomach region, but the volatile fatty acids production is inferior then the production in the – hindgut. To meet the optimum use of the mix of ingredients, and to avoid excess there are harmful to the equine metabolism, […]

An efficient digestion and nutrients absorption, coupled with good animal health status, are fundamental needs in the competitive animal protein industry. Poor absorption of nutrients cause economic losses, and are a source of imbalance in the microbial intestinal microflora, opening doors to diarrhea and other intestinal diseases, or even facilitating systemic problems of animal health. These problems become even more critical in the current scenario of increased risk with the progressive restriction of the use of antibiotic growth promoters around […]

The high cost of feed ingredients, the use of non-renewable sources of phosphate and the dramatic increase in the environmental load resulting from the excessive land application of manure are major challenges for the livestock industry. Precision feeding is proposed as an essential approach to improve the utilization of dietary nitrogen, phosphorus and other nutrients and thus reduce feeding costs and nutrient excretion. Precision feeding requires accurate knowledge of the nutritional value of feedstuffs and animal nutrient requirements, the formulation […]

Intestines of each animal are the niche of a complex and dynamic ecosystem with important effects to the host. The members or final products of this ecosystem influence nutrient digestion, absorption, mucosa metabolism, general physiology, and local and systemic immunological responses of avian hosts. Better understanding of the avian gut microbial ecosystem may lead to improvements on poultry productivity, health, welfare, and reduction of food borne pathogens and the environmental impact of poultry production for a more sustainable industry. Molecular […]

Utilization of digestible amino acid and ideal protein concepts helped to reduce environmental nitrogen excretion and the feed formulation cost without to cause bad performance in broilers. Nevertheless, besides to be recognized that is the best tool at the moment, some factors still should be elucidate to obtain the best utilization of the ideal protein and to reach the best broiler performance. These factors are: knowing about non essential amino acids requirement; utilization good sense to use methodologies to reach […]

Nutritional advances as discussed in these proceedings embrace historical perspective as well as futuristic perspectives. Indeed, we must have a clear understanding of the past to identify key “advances” that will mold the future of poultry nutrition. Early nutrition research is discussed with reference to in ovo nutrition and nutritional needs up to day seven post-hatch. In addition, the nutrition of the hen is key in early nutrition of chicks. Key advances that have impacted diet formulation are energy and […]