On beef feedlot pen surfaces, underlying soil mixes with manure by animal treading, which causes problems for a raft of personnel involved in manure handling from composters to environmental scientists. We show that measuring soil-enriched elements like silicon in pen manure offers a simple and effective way to quantify manure/soil mixing. Our proposed approach could have significant practical benefits: for example, it could be used by feedlot operators to assess the quality of their composted manure products.

Layer-hen manure produces emissions of environmentally significant greenhouse gases and ammonia from manure stockpiles, which require mitigation. The present study compared greenhouse gas and ammonia emissions from uncovered storage with those from covered storage, to assess mitigation potential. Emission factors were calculated for ammonia and methane and mitigation of greenhouse gases and ammonia was achieved through covering layer-hen manure.

The pork industry is a small but significant contributor to agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Australia, with most emissions arising from manure management. The present study measured GHG emissions from a short hydraulic retention-time (HRT) effluent-storage system and a conventional long-HRT treatment in uncovered open ponds. Total GHG emissions were found to be 79% lower from the short-HRT system, potentially providing a GHG mitigation option for conventional pork production.

The majority of the greenhouse gas emissions from the Australian pork industry originate from manure management, and changes in management have the potential to significantly decrease these emissions. The present study measured methane, nitrous oxide and ammonia emissions from a deep-litter housing system and the stockpiled spent litter. The deep-litter system, when compared with conventional effluent pond systems, offers the opportunity of mitigating emissions by 66% and 80%, with and without a stockpile.

Composting is a popular way of managing organic residues, including animal manures, but it is not clear whether it also offers an opportunity for farmers to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Field measurements at a dairy farm showed higher emissions from composting of solid dairy manure than from stockpiling because some best management principles for composting were ignored, resulting in high gaseous nitrogen losses. Adequate incentives are needed for farmers to reduce nitrogen losses and minimise greenhouse-gas emissions.

Australian meat sheep breeders have to balance recording and selection across multiple traits and also breeds. This study investigated the genetic variation within and across breeds in the LAMBPLAN terminal sire database. While direct heterosis was small for the traits studied, there were significant differences between breeds in most traits, which can be exploited by ram breeders.

Australian meat sheep breeders have to balance recording and selection across growth traits, meat attributes, worm resistance and reproduction rate. This study investigated the genetic relationships between traits in the LAMBPLAN terminal sire database. The significant relationships between most traits suggest that breeders should us multiple trait selection indexes that consider the value of, and relationships between, all these traits, rather than focusing on just one or two traits.

Crossbreeding involving different breeds is frequently used for the production of riding horses. Here we have tried to exploit the complementarity in the mating using a method to try and fit optimal contribution towards the best combination of breeds in future generations for a specific performance. The methodology applied here performed nicely in searching for the best contribution of several breeds to find the best combination for particular interests and could, therefore, be useful for other species/populations.

Failures in fertilisation are common in breeding programs after natural mating. Thus, we compared the effect of natural mating or laparoscopic artificial insemination on superovulatory response, fertility and embryo yield in superovulated ewes. This study indicated that the use of the natural mating in the multiple ovulation and embryo transfer program does not affect the fertilisation rate of Santa Inês ewes and could be recommended.

Milk production, plasma parameters and different enzyme activities were compared in two Iranian fat-tailed sheep breeds (Mehraban and Sanjabi) during lactation. There were few differences in plasma parameters between breeds. However, Mehraban ewes performed better than Sanjabi ewes in the last two-thirds of the lactation period.

The productive performance, digestibility, and meat quality in two broiler strains, Arbor Acres (AA) and Hubbard (Hub), fed diets according to four feeding regimens were evaluated. Optimal production performance and economic efficiency were observed in the AA and Hub broilers fed according to NRC and Hub guides, respectively. The interaction genetic strain × feeding regimen should be taken into account when developing nutritional programs for broilers.

We profiled for the first time the mineral contents of fat-tail adipose tissue from Damara sheep affected by weight loss. Only the concentrations of zinc and calcium were affected. This work is an important contribution towards the possible use of the fat-tail by the meat industry, adding value to Damara production through the use of this presently discarded offal.

Livestock contribute to 64% of greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. However, obtaining integrated emissions from different sources and different greenhouse gases in feedlot is challenging. We conducted a study on a feedlot cattle pen and measured CH₄, N₂O and NH₃ emissions. Predictions based on the Australian National Inventory recommendations were calculated. This study reveals that beef feedlot cattle contribute to 3.1% of CH₄ emissions and 5.9% of N₂O emissions from Australian agriculture.

The in situ technique describes the degradation kinetics of feedstuffs and their nutritional components that are used in ration evaluation models. However, this technique requires the analyses of a high number of samples and sometimes there is an insufficient amount of residue for analysis. It is proposed that near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) can predict the crude protein and neutral detergent fibre concentrations of the in situ residues. It is concluded that NIRS could be employed to predict those components of in situ fermentation residues of vegetative pastures, although more robust calibrations need to be developed.

Dehorning is a painful procedure performed on millions of dairy and beef calves each year. Effective and practical pain relief for these animals remains a challenge and the use of a novel pain-relief gel investigated in this study shows pain can be reduced. This has the potential to improve the welfare of calves undergoing dehorning.

This research provides the first comprehensive overview of the meat goat industry in New South Wales and Queensland. The aim was to survey farmers’ knowledge and practices on the management of pastures, stocking rates and markets utilised by meat goat producers. The results showed that the export carcass market was the most important source of income; fencing and access to processing facilities affected costs and market opportunities. Also, goats were considered to be an important method of weed control.

This study investigated goat herd management and productivity on meat goat properties in New South Wales and Queensland. Compared with high rainfall regions, properties in the pastoral regions had a later mean age at weaning, lower kidding rates, prolificacy and adult liveweights, higher mortality rates and less frequent use of nutritional supplements and anthelmintics. Productivity within pastoral regions may be enhanced by investigating causes of mortalities, strategic use of weaning, nutritional supplementation and sire selection based on genetic values.

Increasing livestock numbers in developing economies is essential for improving rural livelihoods, however many smallholder farmers face regular shortages of quality feed. We first conducted an experiment in rural western China that emulated a change in farming practice where nitrogen-rich feed from the spring harvest is conserved for winter, then compared its efficiency to current farming practice. Our results demonstrated the potential for smallholder farmers to improve their situation by altering feed management.

Although horse meat is widely consumed in many countries worldwide, little attention has been paid to evaluating the factors affecting its quality characteristics. In this study, the quality characteristics of horse meat as affected by cut type and post-mortem ageing were investigated. The findings of the present study provide useful information that can improve consumer’s appreciation, acceptance and consumption for this meat type.