204-155 Horse Nutrition and Feed Production

202-154 Introductory Biology for Land and Food.

Topics include:

• climatology;

• the influence of climate on plant growth;

• soils and their influence on plant growth;

• fertilisers; plant identification;

• common grasses, weeds and crops; weed control;

• management of common weed species;

• pasture renovation, factors required for efficient pasture establishment, growth and maintenance;

• fodder crops and fodder conservation;

• recognise common procedures relevant to pasture and cropping enterprises;

• recognising horse feedstuffs and assessing their quality;

• nutritional requirements;

• anatomical and physiological aspects that determine nutritional needs;

• weight estimation;

• feedstuffs and ration formulation;

• analysis of feeds and assessing quality;

• calculating the components of rations;

• changing physiological requirements and ration formulation calculation of requirements for growth, activity, pregnancy and lactation;

• limitations of NRC recommendations;

• ration calculations;

• dynamic changes in feed requirements; nutritional deficiencies and disease, recognising nutritional deficiencies;

• malnutrition;

• diseases of excess nutrition;

• vitamin and mineral deficiencies;

• grazing and feeding strategies; and

• identifying effective strategies for managing the nutritional needs of the horse.

One 3-hour written examination (50%); 2000-word assignments (25%); computer assessed learning package (25%)