Managing boar taint involves addressing welfare concerns related to castration, understanding the compounds causing the taint, and developing reliable detection methods. Surgical castration of piglets is common but raises welfare issues, prompting calls for alternatives. The European Union has seen slow progress in banning castration without pain relief, with varying national approaches. Boar taint, caused by a...
The recent increase in community-acquired Clostridioides difficile infections discloses the shift in this bacterium epidemiology. This study aimed at establishing a transmission network involving One Health components, as well as assessing the zoonotic potential and genomic features of dominant clones. Samples were collected from different compartments of animal, human and environmental origin, from an animal p...
This research work was carried out with the goal of studying the impact of genetic groups-GG (Alentejano-AL, n = 30, and F1 Landrace*Large White-F1 pigs, n = 30) and body weight-BW (90, 120 and 160 kg) on plasma metabolites. Blood parameters were correlated with animal production traits, carcass measurements and meat quality. Individual records for feed conversion index (CI) and daily feed intake were recorded ...
The combination of several factors, including an increase in world population and living standards in developing countries and world dependency on conventional crop imports drive a search for alternative feedstuffs for poultry and pig diets. This would reduce the environmental impact associated with the foreseeable increase in the demand for animal products. One of such alternatives are microalgae, a diverse gr...
The implication of high dietary level of Chlorella vulgaris, individually and supplemented with two carbohydrase mixtures, on pigs' health and liver metabolism was assessed in this study. Forty crossbred (Large White × Landrace sows crossed with Pietrain boars) entire male pigs were randomly allocated to the following feeding treatments (n = 10): cereal-soybean meal basal diet (control); basal diet with 5% C. v...
The relative agronomic performance of two organic fertilizers - effluents from intensive cattle farming, after composting either by traditional aerobic methods (compost) or by bio-digestion by larvae of the black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens, BSF) (frass) - in the growth of annual ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum L.) on a sandy soil was evaluated. For this purpose, a pot trial was conducted in a semi-controlled g...
Aim: The aim of this study was to determine the microbial biodiversity and naturally occurring antibiotic resistance (AR)-encoding genes background load along the food/feed chain in an open-air agricultural testing catchment (HOAL). Methods: Samples were collected in two time points during the year 2020 from various – but interconnected – environmental compartments of the food/feed chain within an HOAL catchmen...
The negative impact of ticks and tick-borne diseases on animals and human health is driving research to discover novel targets affecting both vectors and pathogens. The salivary glands are involved in feeding and pathogen transmission, thus are considered as a compelling target to focus research. In this study, proteomics approach was used to characterize Rhipicephalusbursa sialoproteome in response to Babesiao...
In the Northeast region of Portugal hays from natural pastures are traditionally used as the main feed during the period of drought and the evaluation of its nutritive value is essential. The aim of this study was to predict the apparent organic matter digestibility (OMD) of 21 hays from natural pastures based on chemical composition, pepsin-cellulase solubility of organic matter (OMS) and in vitro organic matt...
Mirandesa cattle are a local breed from the Northeast region of Portugal, playing an important role on the maintenance of the rural spaces, contributing to the fixation of the populations and to the environmental preservation. The aim of this study is to characterize the feed resources (mineral composition) available along the year in this farming system. The animals graze natural pastures in Spring and beginni...