Production, Management and the Environment: Nutrition and Management.

This article presents abstracts of various papers related to the nutrition management in animals, that were presented during the symposium held on July 26, 2005, Cincinnati, Ohio, which was organized by the American Dairy Science Association, the American Society of Animal Science and the Canadian Society of Animal Science. One of the papers presented is "Electronic Identification of Young Lambs With Mini-Bolus and Effects on Intake and Digestibility During Fattening," by J. Ghiradi, G. Caja, C. Flores and D. Garin. Lambs sucked from their mothers until wk 5 or wk 6, and were intensively fattened thereafter. Growth rate, bolus retention and health status were recorded weekly. Retrieval and fore-stomachs location of cylindrical ceramic mini-boluses at slaughter were also recorded. Another paper discussed is "Multivariate Factor Analysis of Electrical Conductivity in Dairy Cattle," by N.P.P. Macciotta, M. Mele, R. Steri and P. Secchiari. Electrical conductivity of milk is an indicator trait for mastitis and it may be considered as a potential breeding goal for genetic programs, even if an accurate detection of affected animals still represents a problem.