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Postgraduate
Livestock Health and Production
(MSC, Postgraduate Diploma and Postgraduate Certificate)
Syllabuses
Core
courses
Animal disease (current concepts)
This course will enable the
student to appreciate the external and internal components of
health, agents of disease and how animals respond to them, at an
individual and population level. Subject areas: immunology;
parasitology; microbiology; introduction to veterinary
epidemiology; principles of veterinary pathology.
Developing
and monitoring of livestock production systems
[Course code 667 0003]
This course will adopt a farming
systems approach to permit the student to place livestock
production within the context of the utilisation of resources.
This will allow a critical consideration of appropriate husbandry
for different animals in diverse environmental and socio-economic
conditions. Subject areas: An introduction to farming systems;
Details of major livestock production systems; Developing and
monitoring of functioning livestock systems with farmers,
including organic farming; Environmental, welfare and breeding
issues in sustainable livestock husbandry.
Principles
of livestock production
This course will enable the student
to understand how feeding, breeding, management and interaction
with the environment influence animal production and disease.
Subject areas: general principles of nutrition; specialised areas
of nutrition (students will select three of the following options
which must include at least one ruminant and one non-ruminant
choice: feeding dairy cows; feeding dual-purpose, beef and draught
cattle; feeding sheep and goats; pig nutrition; poultry nutrition;
nutrition of horses, camelids and rabbits. In all the above cases,
consideration will be given to the different resources available
in temperate and tropical/subtropical regions); environmental
studies, including climatic effects and housing; genetics; the
physiology of growth and lactation; the relevance of reproduction
to livestock production.
Optional
courses
Animal
welfare
[Course code 667 0016]
This course will provide a
comprehensive appreciation of welfare and ethical issues connected
with farm animal practice, animal breeding, transport and
slaughter, companion animals, laboratory animals, animals used in
competition and wildlife. Subject areas: An introduction to
veterinary ethics; the physiology of pain, distress, fear and
anxiety; the effects of genetics on animal welfare; welfare issues
in animal husbandry systems; transport and slaughter; and specific
welfare issues in companion, farmed, laboratory, wild and
competitive animals.
Epidemiology
and animal health economics
[Course code 667 0004]
This course will enable students to
understand the role of epidemiology and economics in the design
and delivery of effective veterinary services aimed at improved
animal health and productivity. Subject areas: introduction to
statistics; introduction to veterinary epidemiology – basic
principles, descriptive epidemiology, study design, sampling,
quantitative aspects of diagnostic testing; animal health
economics – principles, partial budgets, decision tree analysis,
cost-benefit ratio, economics and project planning.
Economics
for livestock development and policy
[Course code 667 0011]
The objectives of this course are to
stimulate awareness of the socio-economic, political and
environmental issues that will affect future livestock development
and to provide the tools to analyse the issues confronting
producers, their advisers, planners and policy makers. Subject
areas: Basic concepts of the economics of livestock production;
Extensive, medium intensity and intensive systems of livestock
production; Marketing and policy; Further economics for the
analysis of livestock development; Tools for livestock economists.
Management
of infectious viral disease outbreaks in animal populations [Course
code 667 0017]
This course
is designed to teach both the theoretical and practical
information required for the management of a major infectious
disease outbreak of farm animals. Topics will include epidemiology
of infectious viral diseases, risk and cost-benefit analysis,
surveillance, diagnosis and vaccination strategies before and
during an outbreak, contingency planning and case studies to
illustrate how disease outbreaks could be better managed.
(Note: This course will not be available until
2007.)
Reproduction
and fertility – a species approach
[Course code 667 0009]
This course will enable students
to gain a comprehensive insight into the physiology of
reproduction and the management and manipulation of fertility to
optimise animal productivity. Subject areas: general principles
of reproduction; introduction to reproductive anatomy and
physiology; control of breeding; fertilisation, conception and
pregnancy; reproductive disorders and disease; embryo transfer
and assisted reproduction; reproduction management. Students
will be required to specialise in three of the following:
cattle; small ruminants; pigs; camelids, rabbits and poultry;
equids.
Research
design, management and grant application writing
[Course code 667 0014]
This course will enable students to
undertake a research project, with an appropriate study design to
validate a hypothesis and analyse the data, including the
presentation of results and writing a grant application. Subject
areas: introduction to scientific research and how to formulate a
hypothesis; literature search, critical analysis of papers and
writing a scientific review; experimental and statistical design
in project planning; project management; preparing data for
analysis – qualitative data, quantitative data; statistical
analysis and analysing the validity of findings; report writing,
presentation of data and writing a scientific paper; introduction
to grant application writing, planning the project and budget;
guidelines to writing a good grant proposal.
Veterinary
public health
[Course code 667 0006]
The course will examine the role
of veterinarians and other related professionals in the
protection of human health through the safe production of foods
of animal origin, control of zoonotic disease and environmental
contamination. Subject areas: disease surveillance and risk
analysis; zoonoses and their control; disseminating information
on veterinary public health; quality and safety assurance in
food production (meat, milk and eggs); development of disease
control programmes.
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