The Australian Academy of Science recently released a Decadal Plan for the Science of Nutrition. This plan was focussed on human nutrition, but it is worth considering implications for production animal science and parallels with animal nutrition. While there are different contexts, there remains much that the animal production nutrition and human nutrition communities can learn from each other.

‘Recent Advances in Animal Nutrition – Australia’ has grown in stature over half a century to become Australia’s leading nutrition symposium. This history describes how the first ‘nutrition school’ was conceived at the University of New England, Armidale (UNE), in the early 1970s, and covers the 25 biennial meetings held at UNE; it pays homage to the many organisers, invited speakers and attendees who have focussed on finding innovative solutions to industry-relevant problems, thereby ensuring the symposium’s long-term success.

Following the banning or decline in the use of antibiotic growth promotors (AGPs), the use of probiotics in poultry production has increased rapidly. The present review describes recent advances in probiotic use in poultry, and focuses on the current understanding of gut health, how to assess it in chickens, and how to improve it via probiotic supplementation in poultry feeds. In particular, it explains the mechanisms how probiotics produce health benefits to the host, including improvements in bird performance.

Livestock probiotic and enzyme supplements are essential parts of diets globally, leading to important health and productivity benefits. Despite the wealth of new research discoveries and niche markets and needs, the development, manufacture and commercialisation of new probiotics and enzymes remains a major challenge for non-established companies and consortia. Here, these challenges are discussed along with the need to develop efficient laboratory-to-market platforms to deliver new and improved feed supplements.

Australia is among the top world suppliers of ruminant products, and hence a significant contributor to global CH₄ emissions from livestock. Plant-based strategies may offer natural, sustainable and economical solutions for enteric CH₄ mitigation from ruminants in Australia. This may include a range of low methanogenic forages or feed additives derived from plants.

The type of forage offered to horses varies in physical form, moisture content and nutrient quality, and these variables may affect the intake, passage rate and digestibility of the forage consumed. There were significant differences among diets for dry-matter intake, eating behaviour and feed passage rate. Longer mean retention time was associated with a greater fibre content in the diet and a restricted feed supply, thus supporting the hypothesis that horses alter mean retention time on the basis of a nutrient absorption optimisation model.