Jornal de Saúde Animal e Ciência Comportamental

Animal Nutrition

Animal nutrition concentrates on the dietary needs of domesticated animals, fundamentally those in food production and agriculture. Meeting domesticated animals nutritious requirements is critical in keeping up adequate execution of neonatal, developing, completing and rearing animals. All living organisms require specific essential nutrients to fulfill the biological processes connected with tissue maintenance and repair, for growth and for all other productive activities including reproduction, lactation or work. Dissimilar to green plants, animals cannot capture solar energy and combine this with basic elements to provide nutrients yet should depend on finding, ingesting and processing appropriate encourages to fulfill their requirement. Most potential feeds have complex chemical structures that must be broken down (digested) into simple compounds before they can be taken into (absorbed) and utilise inside the animal body. This process includes the ingestion of feeds, the physical and chemical reduction to simple products for absorption from the digestive tract and the subsequent elimination of indigestible residues. Chemically, digestion involves a hydrolytic reaction splitting large molecules until they are reduced to very small components that can pass across the intestinal lining into the body. Combinations of voluntary and involuntary mechanisms under both neural and endocrine controls and with acceleration by enzyme catalysts manage these procedures. Also crucial to the nutrition program for animals is water. Livestock may have health problems resulting from substandard quality water. Consuming water is more important than consuming food. A successful livestock enterprise requires a good water supply, in terms both of quantity and quality. Safe supplies of water are absolutely essential for livestock. If livestock do not drink enough safe water every day, intake of feed (roughages and concentrates) will drop, production will fall and the livestock producer will lose money.

Types of Nutrition in Animals

The system by which Organism obtain food is referred to as the methods of nutrition. The organisms either synthesize their own food or get nourishment arranged by different living beings in different ways. There are essentially two methods of nutrition in animals - autotrophic and heterotrophic.

Autotrophic nutrition

“Auto” means self and "trophic" means food.In this way, the living beings, which integrate their own particular nourishment utilizing CO2, are known as the autotrophs and the procedure is called autotrophic nutrition. Autotrophs include every green plant and a few microorganisms such as the nitrifying bacteria.

Heterotrophic nutrition

“Hetero” refers to other or different and "trophic" refers to food. Subsequently, the living beings that acquire their food from different organism are called heterotrophs and the way toward getting the nourishment from different organism is called heterotrophic nourishment. All heterotrophs depend directly or indirectly on the autotrophic organisms for their food and energy requirements. Heterotrophs include most of the bacteria, fungi and all animals.