Animal Husbandry and Dairy Science
Animal Husbandry and Dairy Science
This section tests breed identification, ruminant digestion, feeding, reproduction, milk composition and common livestock diseases.
Core rules
- Indigenous cattle breeds include Sahiwal, Red Sindhi, Tharparkar and Gir. Murrah, Surti and Jaffarabadi are buffalo breeds.
- Exotic dairy breeds include Holstein Friesian and Jersey; Jersey milk generally has a higher fat percentage than Holstein Friesian milk.
- Ruminants have four stomach compartments: rumen, reticulum, omasum and abomasum. Microbial fermentation in the rumen digests roughage.
- Colostrum is the first milk after calving and supplies antibodies; it must be fed early.
- Common diseases include foot-and-mouth disease, mastitis, haemorrhagic septicaemia and black quarter.
- Ration balancing uses crude protein and total digestible nutrients; the Pearson square balances two feeds to a target protein percentage.
Worked example
Balance a concentrate to 18% crude protein using groundnut cake at 40% CP and maize at 9% CP. Parts of groundnut cake = 18 − 9 = 9. Parts of maize = 40 − 18 = 22. Total parts = 31. Groundnut cake = 9/31 = 29%; maize = 22/31 = 71%. The reasoning is to take absolute differences across the square and divide by the total parts.
Mark-losing traps
- Listing Murrah as a cattle breed; it is a buffalo breed.
- Reversing the order of the four stomach compartments.
- Treating colostrum as ordinary milk.
- Using the Pearson square with percentages that are not on the same nutrient basis.