Nutritional strategies for poultry and pigs

Poultry and pig meat as well as egg consumption represent an excellent source of proteins and amino acids to satisfy a significant fraction of human nutritional needs. With this in mind this book addresses the physiological characteristics of poultry digestion and absorption and discusses how the addition of fats and organic selenium to the diet can improve the quality of these products. On the other hand it also discusses in depth how exogenous enzymes act on anti-nutritional factors present in food that cannot be digested due to the lack of endogenous enzyme production by the birds. Nutrition influences the synthesis and metabolism of many hormones involved in animal metabolism and performance. These effects are exerted by specific nutrients nutritional energy status and changes in food intake. For this reason this book also addresses aspects related to nutrigenomics so that we can advance our understanding of the relationships between nutrition genetics and the productive and reproductive performance of animals.