Zika virus (ZIKV) can spread from one person to another through a mosquito bite. This exposure does not cause any major issues for a healthy person. However, pregnant mothers infected with ZIKV are highly associated with delivering infants with a smaller head size due to fetal brain injury.

Sheep in extensive grazing systems often face periods of poor-quality forage, particularly during winter, which can impede ewe nutrition during pregnancy. Nutrient restriction during mid-to-late gestation is known to negatively impact ewe health and lamb development.

Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that helps regulate many body functions, including mood and appetite, metabolism, and blood flow. Serotonin is produced from the amino acid tryptophan, but this pathway is limited, only a small portion of tryptophan normally enters. One way to increase serotonin production is by providing 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP), the direct precursor to serotonin.

This eighty-four–day study explored the interaction of vitamin A and zinc on growth performance, carcass merit, and trace mineral metabolism in Angus-crossbred steers. Previous research has indicated removal of vitamin A from finishing diets improves carcass merit.

Dietary fiber is partitioned into soluble and insoluble fractions. Corn cobs consist mostly of insoluble dietary fiber whereas sugar beet pulp contains a substantial amount of soluble dietary fiber in addition to insoluble fiber. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of feed intake and fiber type on nutrient digestibility in pigs.

Medium-chain fatty acids (MCFA) are known to improve postweaning growth performance in pigs by supporting energy balance and reducing postweaning diarrhea. This study evaluated the effect of increasing dietary MCFA levels up to 1.0%, replacing soybean oil, on growth performance, fecal score, energy status, gut health, and immune responses in nursery pigs fed high-protein diets (24% crude protein) for 35 d.

The first hours after hatching are considered important for the health and development of broiler chickens. In commercial production systems, chicks may experience a delay before gaining access to feed. This study investigated how different delays in feed access after hatching affect slower-growing broiler chickens throughout the production cycle.

The August Edition of The Giving Herd, an ASAS Foundation Newsletter

Ruminant livestock systems are an integral part of agricultural and rural communities globally which provide high quality nutritious food and a plethora of other socio-economic services. However, the impact that ruminant livestock systems can have on climate volatility, land use and biodiversity loss, soil degradation, and water scarcity and quality, calls into focus their future sustainability, especially considering rising global demand for nutritious food.

The hub-and-spoke network model, originating from transportation (e.g., airline systems), features a central hub for coordination and peripheral spokes for localized execution. It promotes efficiency in resource allocation, knowledge sharing, and scaling by reducing redundancies and enabling adaptability, as seen in supply chains.

Sustainable intensification strategies that provide productivity, resilience, and economic benefits while lowering dependency on external resources are becoming more important in global attempts to alter livestock systems under climate change (Eisler et al., 2014). In this regard, the hub-and-spoke Global Farm Platform (GFP) model offers a special global setting for combining agricultural practices, science, and policy across distinct agroecological zones (Figure 1) (Rivero et al., 2021, 2026; Lee et al., 2025).

Globally, rangeland grazing systems account for the majority of grazing lands (Reid et al., 2008) and more than half of the total land, with over 200 million people raising livestock in pastoral and agro-pastoral grazing systems. In Europe, a large proportion (59%) of these lands are classed as less favored areas (LFA—Article 2 of EU Council Directive No. 75/268/EEC) or areas of natural constraints [Article 32 of Regulation (EU) No. 1305/2013].

Agroecological research operates at the intersection of biophysical processes, management decisions, and institutional constraints, requiring approaches that move beyond traditional experimental paradigms to address real-world agricultural complexity. In many regions, these agroecosystems are structured around crop–livestock systems, where animals play a central role in mediating the flow of energy and nutrients across landscapes (Lemaire et al., 2014; Martin et al., 2016).

Livestock are crucial lifelines for millions of African farmers and pastoralists, providing food, income, manure, draft power and cultural value (Ibeagha-Awemu et al., 2026). In many communities, cattle, sheep and goats act as a “last-resort insurance” in drought years (Younas and Yaqoob, 2005; Kanwal et al., 2020). However, African livestock systems face mounting pressures.

On August 6th the Senate Agriculture Committee has scheduled a meeting to consider its version of the Farm Bill. Chairman Boozman (R-AR) released a revised version of the bill ahead of the meeting that makes changes related to E-15 and nutrition policy. The Chairman is working to build bipartisan support, which will be needed to advance the bill out of committee.

There is increasing interest in reducing environmental impacts of grazing ruminants. Recently, the use of high-water-content forages to produce dilute urine, thereby mitigating nitrogen concentrations in excreta and reducing impacts on groundwater, has been encouraged in temperate grazing systems.

Early weaning phase is the most critical challenge in piglet development, as the associated stress often impairs production performance. Therefore, mitigating this stress and enhancing growth are the primary goals immediately after weaning.

Maintaining adequate hydration is a concern for cat owners and veterinarians, given that many cats are fed low-moisture dry diets and that dietary moisture contributes to their hydration. In this study, we recorded the water intake and drinking behavior of healthy colony and client-owned cats fed three diets with different moisture contents (100% dry, 50% dry and 50% wet, and 100% wet).

Disease resilience is the ability of an animal to maintain performance or to recover quickly when exposed to disease and is a viable target for pig breeding programs to improve productivity and animal welfare and reduce the use of antibiotics. However, disease resilience is difficult to select for in pig nucleus breeding programs and requires indicator traits that can be measured on animals without exposure to disease.

Growth performance, carcass composition, and meat quality are key traits in the Iberian pig industry. Genomic tools enable a more comprehensive and accurate identification of genetic markers to improve selection for these traits. In this study, a genome-wide association analysis was performed in over 500 Iberian pigs, identifying 165 genetic markers associated with loin and ham yield, meat tenderness, and fatty acid composition.