The feed resource for animals is a major cost determinant for profitability in livestock production enterprises, and thus any effort at improving the efficiency of feed use will help to reduce feed cost. Feed conversion ratio, expressed as feed inputs per unit output, is a traditional measure of efficiency that has significant phenotypic and genetic correlations with feed intake and growth trai...

The efficiency of feed use is an important factor influencing costs of production. However, feed intake (FI) is generally difficult and costly to measure. In addition, feed intake per se is relatively meaningless unless taken in the context of prevailing environmental and physiological processes. For example, FI and its utilisation by animals is altered by climate, activity levels, disease and ...

and Implications Regions of the genome associated with variation in feed efficiency and dry matter intake were identified using data from 3306 Holstein cows from Europe and North America. For feed efficiency, regions that explained the most variation were located on chromosomes 18, 5, and 3. For dry matter intake, top regions were 26, 5, and 25. For both traits no one region explained more than...

this experiment was designed to evaluate the effect of phenolic components of scrophularia striata powder on feed intake, digestion and fermentation, rumination kinetic and rumen ecosystem in lori-bakhtiari sheep. in this experiment, 12 six months old lambs and average weight 30±1.5 kg were fed with 0 (control), 3 and 6 percent scrophularia striata for one month. feed intake, digestibility, rum...

The objective of this study was to identify genomic regions and metabolic pathways associated with dry matter intake, average daily gain, feed efficiency and residual feed intake in an experimental Nellore cattle population. The high-density SNP chip (Illumina High-Density Bovine BeadChip, 777k) was used to genotype the animals. The SNP markers effects and their variances were estimated using t...

Records on 514 bulls from the sire population born from 1978 to 2004, and on 22,099 of their field progeny born from 1997 to 2003 with available pedigree information (total number = 124,458) were used to estimate genetic parameters for feed intake and energy efficiency traits of bulls and their relationships with carcass traits of field progeny. Feed intake and energetic efficiency traits were ...

Feed costs account for a large proportion of the costs of pig production representing usually around 50% of the total costs (Aranda and Cleary, 2001). in the Australian pig industry this proportion has been much higher recently due to the shortage of feed resulting from the extensive drought. Selection for feed efficiency is always an important topic, independent of the current drought situatio...

Valvetrain flexibility enables the optimization of the engine’s ability to breathe across the operating range, resulting in more efficient operation. The authors have shown the merit of improving volumetric efficiency via valvetrain flexibility to improve fuel efficiency at elevated engine speeds in the previous work. This study focuses on production viable solutions targeting similar volumetri...

The objective of this study was to assess the relationship between the quality of mastication and dietary intake among community-dwelling older adults (67-84 years). A secondary analysis of data collected upon entry of participants in the NuAge study was effected. Perceived masticatory efficiency (n=1793) was measured using a questionnaire inspired by the Oral Health Impact Profile. Direct asse...