OBJECTIVE We hypothesized that enemas and polyethylene glycol (PEG) would be equally effective in treating rectal fecal impaction (RFI) but enemas would be less well tolerated and colonic transit time (CTT) would improve during disimpaction. METHODS Children (4-16 years) with functional constipation and RFI participated. One week before disimpaction, a rectal examination was performed, sympto...

Since the feed cost is a major determinant of profitability in poultry industry, how to improve feed efficiency through genetic selection is an intriguing subject for breeders and producers. As a more suitable indicator assessing feed efficiency, residual feed intake (RFI) is defined as the difference between observed and expected feed intake based on maintenance and growth. However, the geneti...

Improving feed efficiency in dairy cattle could result in more profitable and environmentally sustainable dairy production through lowering feed costs and emissions from dairy farming. In addition, beef production based on dairy herds generates fewer greenhouse gas emissions per unit of meat output than beef production from suckler cow systems. Different scenarios were used to assess the profit...

A better understanding of the factors regulating feed efficiency and their potential as predictors of feed efficiency in cattle is needed. Therefore, the potential of three classes of traits, namely, feeding behavior characteristics: daily time at feeder (TF; min/day), time per meal (TM; min), meal size (MS; g DM), eating rate (ER; g DM/min), number of daily meals (NM) and daily visits to the f...

No genetic parameters for performance and feed efficiency traits are available for Irish performance-tested bulls. The objective of this study was to determine the phenotypic and genetic variation for feed intake, BW, ADG, and measures of feed efficiency including feed conversion ratio (FCR), relative growth rate, Kleiber ratio, residual BW gain (RG), and residual feed intake (RFI). Observation...

Data from a selection experiment for residual feed intake (RFI) were used to estimate genetic correlations between measures of efficiency and performance traits with juvenile IGF-I, and to demonstrate direct and correlated responses to selection. The heritability of IGF-I was 0.28 +/- 0.06 and genetic correlations of IGF-I with feed intake (0.26 +/- 0.17), backfat (0.52 +/- 0.11), and feed conv...