Abstract
Growth is a complex biological process which occurs through a series of cellular proliferation, cellular differentiation, and morphogenesis resulting in a progressive increase in the size and weight of an animal.
Growth takes place through the processes of increase of cell numbers and increases of cell size. Growth and development of cells, tissues, and organs occur both during prenatal and postnatal life of an organism. Several factors that regulate growth during prenatal periods include heredity, endocrine factors, maternal age and nutrition, sex of the fetus, litter size, and environment. Factors which influence postnatal growth include genetic factors, nutritional, climatic, managemental, and health status. Thus, the knowledge of biological process and factors that influences the growth of meat-producing animals and poultry species is very much essential to maximize the growth, meat and egg production efficiency, and quality of the product yield by the farm animals. However, the growth process may be manipulated by using various growth enhancers, feed additives, and supplementation of growth factors to improve the growth of animals. This chapter provides an overview of the physiological process of growth during various developmental stages of meat-producing animals and details of growth manipulation, growth anomalies, aging, and senescence in domestic farm animals.C. Devaraj (X) ∙ M. R. R. Nair ∙ V. Sejian
ICAR-National Institute of Animal Nutrition and Physiology, Bangalore, Karnataka, India
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 677
P. K. Das et al. (eds.), Textbook of Veterinary Physiology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9410-4_26
Graphical Abstract
Description of the graphic: Prenatal growth and development process in farm animals (1), postnatal growth process in farm animals (2), growth of adult farm animals (3), both pre and postnatal growth is controlled by various genes (4).
Growth during prenatal, postnatal, and adult life is regulated by the Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Growth hormone axis (5). Growth and developmental process during prenatal life is affected by various factors related to the mother, fetus, and environment (6), similarly postnatal and adult growth also affected by various factors (7). The growth of meat-producing animals and poultry is being manipulated using various strategies in order to enhance production efficiency (8) and finally due to the gradual decline of all the functional characteristics, animals undergoes aging and senescence (9). All aspects of the growth of farm animals are elaborated in this chapterKeywords
Environment ∙ Growth ∙ Hormones ∙ Prenatal growth ∙ Postnatal growth ∙ Senescence
Application of different techniques to enhance growth in meat-producing animals and poultry.
Information about growth anomalies, aging, and senescence in domestic animals.
Learning Objectives
• Understanding the growth process in domestic animals.
• Knowing the different factors affecting prenatal and postnatal growth.
26.1