Disclosed herein are genetic markers for animal growth, appetite and fatness, methods for identifying such markers, and methods of screening animals to determine those more likely to produce desired growth, appetite and fatness and preferably selecting those animals for future breeding purposes. The markers are based upon the presence or absence of certain polymorphisms in the Ghrelin gene.

The Pyrenean brown bear (Ursus arctos) population is considered as one of the most seriously threatened with extinction in Western Europe. To assess its viability and possible needs of augmentation, we develop deterministic and stochastic stage-structured demographic models. The deterministic model reveals that a bear population cannot have a high annual growth rate and is particularly sensitiv...

A concept for a charge state multiplier, to be used for the production of energetic radioactive ion beams based on the ISOL+post-accelerator system, is discussed. The charge state breeder implies external ion injection into an Electron Beam Ion Source (EBIS). The total efficiency, measured by injecting a low-energy nitrogen (Q=1+ ) beam, reached 14.5% and was essentially constant for confinemen...

In addition to inducing egg production, exposure to long days concomitantly activates processes that eventually result in photorefractoriness (PR) and cessation of egg production. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the duration of exposure to long days that result in these processes. In each of 3 experiments, we subjected Large White turkey breeder hens to long days (16 or 18 h per day) for...

For hatcheries, not only is it important to have a high level of hatchability, but the quality of the chicks provided also has to be good, because broiler farmers are looking for chicks with a high growth potential, resulting in a greater slaughter yield at the end of the rearing period. However, chick quality has proven to be a difficult and subjective matter to define. Therefore, the aim of t...

The breeder and the chemostat have been used to measure mutation rates for two mutations under a variety of steady state growth conditions. These rates have been found to be higher in complex medium than in minimal (F) medium. The effects of changes in nutritional conditions on these high rates have been described. In addition, the mutation rates at short generation times, in complex medium, ha...

In many consumer-resource systems the consumer population has synchronized reproduction at regular intervals (e.g., years) but consumes the resource and dies continuously, while the resource population grows continuously or has overlapping generations that are short relative to the time between consumer reproductive events. Such systems require "semi-discrete" models that have both discrete and...

Severe injuries involving the carpus are often characterized by multiple fractures of the various carpal bones with accompanying joint instability. Most such injuries can be managed successfully utilizing aggressive internal fixation techniques, with reasonably good prognosis for a pasture sound animal, satisfactory for breeding purposes. Author’s address: Elgin Veterinary Hospital, Inc., PO Bo...