26/08/2025
🐔🐖🐑Comprehensive list of common definitions of terms in animal science, categorized for clarity🐔🐖🐏
1. General Terms
Animal Science: The study of biology, physiology, breeding, nutrition, health, and production of domestic animals.
Livestock: Domesticated animals raised for commercial purposes such as meat, milk, eggs, fiber, or labor.
Poultry: Domesticated birds such as chickens, turkeys, ducks, and quails raised for eggs or meat production.
2. Breeding and Genetics
Breeding: The process of mating selected animals to produce desired traits in offspring.
Genotype: The genetic makeup of an animal.
Phenotype: The observable characteristics of an animal resulting from its genotype and environment.
Crossbreeding: Mating of animals from different breeds to produce offspring with improved traits (hybrid vigor).
Inbreeding: Mating closely related animals to maintain specific genetic traits.
Heritability: The proportion of variation in a trait that can be attributed to genetics.
3. Nutrition
Ration: The amount and type of feed provided to an animal in a 24-hour period.
Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR): The efficiency with which animals convert feed into body mass or products like milk or eggs.
Roughage: High-fiber feeds like hay or silage, important for ruminants.
Concentrates: Low-fiber, high-energy feeds such as grains and protein supplements.
Nutrient: Substances in food required for growth, reproduction, and maintenance of animals.
4. Physiology
Gestation: The period of pregnancy from conception to birth.
Lactation: The process of producing milk by female mammals.
Estrus (Heat): The period in a female’s reproductive cycle when she is receptive to mating.
Weaning: The process of transitioning young animals from mother’s milk to solid feed.
Metabolism: The set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in an animal's body.
5. Animal Health
Mortality Rate: The percentage of animals that die in a specific period or population.
Morbidity: The presence of disease or illness in an animal or group of animals.
Biosecurity: Measures taken to prevent the introduction or spread of diseases in an animal facility.
Vaccination: Administration of a vaccine to stimulate immunity against diseases.
Parasite: An organism that lives on or inside an animal, causing harm.
6. Production
Broilers: Chickens raised specifically for meat production.
Layers: Chickens raised for egg production.
Carcass Yield: The proportion of an animal’s live weight that is usable meat.
Dressing Percentage: The percentage of the animal's live weight that remains as a carcass after slaughter.
Growth Rate: The rate at which an animal gains weight over time.
7. Behavior
Flight Zone: The area around an animal that, when entered, causes it to move away.
Social Hierarchy: The ranking of animals within a group, often determining access to resources.
Domestication: The process of adapting wild animals for human use.
8. Poultry-Specific Terms
Chicks: Young, newly hatched poultry.
Culling: The process of removing
unproductive or diseased animals from a flock.
Molting: The natural shedding and regrowth of feathers in poultry.
Hen: An adult female chicken.
Rooster: An adult male chicken.
9. Ruminant-Specific Terms
Ruminants: Animals with a four-compartment stomach (e.g., cattle, sheep, goats) designed for digesting fibrous feeds.
Rumen: The largest compartment of a ruminant's stomach where fermentation occurs.
Silage: Fermented, high-moisture fodder stored in silos, used to feed ruminants.
Chewing Cud: The process of regurgitating and re-chewing food to aid digestion.
