World experts gather to discuss animal nutrition

July 04, 2007

Once every two years the University of New England convenes one of the world's leading forums on animal nutrition. The 16th conference in this series – Recent Advances in Animal Nutrition in Australia 2007 – will be at UNE on the 9th, 10th and 11th of July.

About 100 delegates from Australia and abroad will travel to Armidale to discuss topics as diverse as "Grass eating patterns in the domestic dog" and "Why kangaroos don't produce methane".

A member of the organising committee, UNE's Professor John Nolan, said the biennial conference was "a forum for world authorities to present new ideas". "We encourage our speakers to challenge dogma, look ahead, and try to predict where the next significant research advances will be made," he said.

The conference will include sessions on – among other things – new feeding practices, research on gut microbes, and "managing heat stress through nutrition". In a session on the feeding behaviour of animals, UNE's Associate Professor Geoff Hinch will present the results of research on the ability of sheep to recognise – and select appropriately from – different kinds of food. Conference sessions will be in the Wright Lecture Theatre at the Livestock Industries Institute, UNE.

One of the five invited international speakers will be Professor T.G. Nagaraja from Kansas State University in the United States, a leading researcher on the bacterium E. coli 0157 which lives in the gut of cattle and other farm animals and can cause severe diarrhoea in humans – in some cases leading to serious complications or even death. Professor Nagaraja will present, at the conference, his research team's latest findings on the reasons for 0157's increased occurrence.

Professor Nolan said that the papers to be presented at the conference – all of them peer-reviewed – had been published in both book and CD form, and would be available to delegates as the conference "Proceedings". The conference Web site is at: www.recentadvances.org.au.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at July 4, 2007 05:28 PM