Carbon and blue water footprints of California sheep production.

While the environmental impacts of livestock production, such as greenhouse gas emissions and water usage, have been studied for a variety of US livestock production systems, the environmental impact of US sheep production is still unknown. A cradle-to-farm gate life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted according to international standards (ISO 14040/44), analyzing the impacts of CS representing five different meat sheep production systems in California, and focusing on carbon footprint (carbon dioxide equivalents, CO2e) and irrigated water usage (metric ton, MT). This study is the first to look specifically at the carbon footprint of the California sheep industry and consider both wool and meat production across the diverse sheep production systems within California.

Estimation of calcium and phosphorus content in growing and finishing pigs: whole empty body components and relative accretion rates.

Two comparative serial-slaughter experiments were conducted to determine whole empty body (WEB) composition and accretion rates of Ca and P in 18 to 109 kg BW pigs to provide information for modeling of these nutrients for growth. Both studies were conducted with 5 sets of 5 littermate barrows which were allotted to 5 slaughter groups in each study (Exp. 1: 18, 27, 36, 45, and 54 kg BW; Exp.

Application of the moving boundary truncation method to reactive scattering: H + H2, O + H2, O + HD.

The moving boundary truncation (MBT) method is a time-dependent adaptive method that can significantly reduce the number of grid points needed to perform accurate wave packet propagation while maintaining stability. This work presents a more robust variation of the method. Significant improvements have been made that allow the MBT method to be applied to any potential energy surface and used with any propagation method.

Estimation of endogenous phosphorus loss in growing and finishing pigs fed semi-purified diets.

Thirty-six barrows were used in a series of 3 P-balance experiments in which growing and finishing pigs were fed highly digestible, semi-purified diets at or below the dietary available P requirement to estimate the effect of BW on endogenous P loss. Experiments 1, 2, and 3 were conducted with pigs averaging 27, 59, and 98 kg of BW, respectively. In each experiment, pigs were placed in metabolism crates and allotted by weight and litter to 3 dietary treatments.

Effects of increasing dietary L-carnitine on growth performance of weanling pigs.

Four experiments were conducted to evaluate the effects of supplementing graded levels (0 to 100 ppm) of L-carnitine to the diet of weanling pigs on growth performance during a 34- to 38-d experimental period. A fifth experiment was conducted to determine the effects of addition of L-carnitine to diets with or without added soybean oil (SBO) on growth performance. In Exp.