Contemporary and Emerging Issues: Current and Future Prospects for Animal Nutrition Management for Environmental Impact Reduction

The objective of this exercise was to develop a practicum-based pilot course to instruct undergraduate students interested in equine reproduction with specific emphasis on the pregnant mare, parturition and postnatal foal. The course was offered as a Special Topics in Animal Science, but open to students from across campus with an interest in the equine species. Forty three students enrolled (4 freshman, 10 sophomore, 8 junior and 21 senior) representing six majors. The course offered a weekly lecture and six nights of foal-watch duty for a total of two credit hours. Students worked in pairs, assisted with the birth process and performed the post-partum treatments of the foal. Students were required to maintain detailed records in the foal-watch log book of activities related to mare behavior, udder development, time of delivery, time from delivery to foal standing and suckling, and whether there were complications (i.e., dystocia). For credit, students had to complete six nights of duty, attend the weekly lecture and write a report on their experiences while on foal-watch duty. At the conclusion of the course, a course evaluation was conducted to assess student perceptions of the course as a whole. Evaluations were conducted on the basis of a 1 to 5 scale (1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree) and were analyzed to ascertain the value of lectures and the hands-on experience during foal-watch. Thirty six of the forty three students enrolled responded (83.7%). The course evaluation revealed that the students felt that the course was relevant to equine sciences (4.83±0.07), that lectures complimented the practicum exercises (foal-watch; 4.50±0.12), that they learned a lot from the course (4.17±0.17), and that what they learned would have useful application later in life (4.64±0.11). The students agreed that having more than one instructor team-teaching the course was good (4.28±0.14) and students disagreed that the different teaching styles were distracting (2.11±0.17). There was agreement (4.80±0.12) that the pilot course should be recommended to the university curriculum committee for development as a practicum-based course in the equine sciences.