Morphological feeding and animal welfare

Academic Year 2019/2020 - 3° Year - Curriculum ZOOTECNICO ECONOMICO

Learning Objectives

• Feeding techniques

  Students acquire the basic knowledge on the anatomy and physiology of the digestive system, on feeds, on their chemical-related nutritional and storage systems, as well as on methods for assessing chemical-nutrient.

  At the end of the course students will be able to make an assessment of nutritional properties of feeds for animals.

• VALUTAZIONI MORFOFUNZIONALI E BENESSERE ANIMALE

  To acquire skills on traditional and modern methods of evaluating the morphological characteristics of animals in livestock production in order to estimate their reproductive and productive potential associated with them. Provide general information on the main genetic improvement models aimed at improving the morphological characteristics of dairy and meat animals. Insights, on the main regulations concerning animal welfare, with particular attention to some aspects of this topic (transport, slaughter, castration, diagnostic systems)

Course Structure

• Feeding techniques

  Class lectures, applied activities and tests during the course

• VALUTAZIONI MORFOFUNZIONALI E BENESSERE ANIMALE

  Lectures, in-depth seminars on some of the topics covered, classroom exercises, farm visits with examples of morphological evaluation of live animals.

Detailed Course Content

• Feeding techniques

  Nutrients. Elements of anatomy and physiology of polygastric and monogastric digestive systems and endocrinal system. Chemical characteristics of feeds for animals; Chemical analysis, digestibility and nutritive value; green fodder, hay, silage, concentrates, byproducts. Preservation techniques of fodder: hay and silage. Energy and protein needs.

• VALUTAZIONI MORFOFUNZIONALI E BENESSERE ANIMALE

  The part of morpho-functional evaluations of the course will cover the following topics: study and description of the skeleton; anatomy and physiology of the mammary apparatus; study of morphological types; zoognostic terminology; the zoognostic regions: anatomical bases and their merits and defects; zoometric measurements and indices; morphological and functional evaluation of the dairy cow and beef cattle; age estimation from the examination of the teeth; carcass classification (Europe and North America). Presentation of the main genetic improvement programs and relative indices of evaluation of the breeders. The part of the course that will deal with the welfare of farm animals will deal with the current legislation, the farriery technique (care of the bovine foot), the "Wellness" Integrated Diagnostic System, castration in the various species of zootechnical interest, animal transport and slaughter techniques

Textbook Information

• Feeding techniques

  G. Bittante, I. Andrighetto, M. Ramanzin, Fondamenti di Zootecnica Liviana editore

  M. Antongiovanni, M. Gualtieri “Nutrizione e alimentazione animale” Ed. Edagricole, Bologna

• VALUTAZIONI MORFOFUNZIONALI E BENESSERE ANIMALE

  1) D. Balasini – Zoognostica – Edagricole;
  2) Bortolami-Callegari-Beghelli – Anatomia e Fisiologia degli animali domestici – Edagricole;

  3) Cataloghi centri di fecondazione Artificiali

  4) Dispense del docente; Supporti informatici forrniti dal docente tramite e-mail (glicitra@unict.it)/Piattaforma Studium