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Animals
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New Strategies for Efficient Livestock Farming: Nutritional Regulation, Disease Prevention,...
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New Strategies for Efficient Livestock Farming: Nutritional Regulation, Disease Prevention, and Environmental Sustainability Perspectives

A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615). This special issue belongs to the section "Animal System and Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 March 2025 | Viewed by 249

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Guoqi Zhao

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Animal Science and Technology, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, China
Interests: phytogenic feed additives; plant extract; milk quality; animal production; immune response; nutrition metabolism
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

With the increasing improvement in people’s living standards, the demand for animal products of high quality is also increasing. Reasonable nutritional regulation has a positive effect on animal productivity. The occurrence of animal diseases and the use of antibiotics have caused substantial economic losses to farmers. Feed additives with bioactive functions are one of the effective measures to alleviate animal diseases and improve productivity. Regulating the microbiota improves gastrointestinal function, reduces methane emissions, enhances feed utilization efficiency, and promotes sustainable environmental development.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following topics: (1) improving animal productivity by changing feeding methods; (2) the impact of bioactive feed additives on animal health (including molecular mechanism research); and (3) changes in the gut microbiota of animals and effective measures to alleviate methane emissions.

Prof. Dr. Guoqi Zhao
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • feed additives
  • animal health
  • animal productivity
  • immunoregulation
  • immune response
  • methane emission
  • microbial community

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

15 pages, 2199 KiB  
Article
Effects of High-Grain Diet on Performance, Ruminal Fermentation, and Rumen Microbial Flora of Lactating Holstein Dairy Cows
by Kexin Wang, Damin Song, Xuelei Zhang, Osmond Datsomor, Maocheng Jiang and Guoqi Zhao
Animals 2024, 14(17), 2522; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani14172522 - 30 Aug 2024
Viewed by 87
Abstract
The objectives of the current study were to evaluate the fluctuations in production performance, rumen fermentation, and microbial community in lactating dairy cows fed a high-grain diet (HG). In this study, 16 healthy Holstein lactating dairy cattle with similar milk yields of 16.80 [...] Read more.
The objectives of the current study were to evaluate the fluctuations in production performance, rumen fermentation, and microbial community in lactating dairy cows fed a high-grain diet (HG). In this study, 16 healthy Holstein lactating dairy cattle with similar milk yields of 16.80 ± 4.30 kg/d, days in milk 171.44 ± 23.25 days, and parity 2.2 ± 1.5 times were selected and randomly allocated into two groups. One group was fed a low-grain diet (LG; 40% concentrate, DM basis; n = 8), and the other group was fed a high-grain diet (HG; 60% concentrate, DM basis; n = 8). The experiment lasted 6 weeks, including 1 week for adaptation. The experimental results showed that the milk fat content in the milk of lactating cows in the HG group was significantly reduced (p < 0.05), and the milk urea nitrogen (MUN) content showed an increasing trend (0.05 < p < 0.10) compared with the LG group. Compared with the LG group, rumen fluid pH was significantly decreased after feeding a high-grain diet, and contents of total volatile fatty acids (TVFA), acetate, propionate, and butyrate were significantly increased (p < 0.05). The acetate/propionate significantly decreased (p < 0.05). HG group significantly increased the abundance of Prevotella and Bacteroides in rumen fluid while significantly reducing the abundance of Methanobrevibacter and Lachnospiraceae ND3007_group (p < 0.05). Microorganisms with LDA scores > 2 were defined as unique, with the bacterial genus Anaerorhabdus_furcosa_group identified as a biomarker for the LG group, and the unique bacterial genus in the HG group were Prevotella, Stenotrophomonas, and Xanthomonadaceae. The prediction results of microbial function showed that a total of 18 KEGG differential pathways were generated between the two treatment groups, mainly manifested in metabolic pathways, signal transduction, and the immune system. In conclusion, the HG group promoted rumen fermentation by altering the microbial composition of lactating cows. Our findings provide a theoretical basis for the rational use of high-grain diets to achieve high yields in intensive dairy farming. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Strategies for Efficient Livestock Farming: Nutritional Regulation, Disease Prevention, and Environmental Sustainability Perspectives)
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