Disclosed herein is a method for promoting reduction of heat stress in animals, as well as a composition for use in the disclosed method. The composition comprises a glucan, silica, mineral clay, mannan, and optionally an endoglucanohydrolase, and may be administered to an animal that is susceptible to or suffers from heat stress.

Embodiments of the present disclosure describe compositions for increasing the health and feed efficiency of an animal comprising one or more essential oils, wherein the one or more essential oils include at least thyme essential oil and cinnamon essential oil; and an emulsifier, wherein the one or more essential oils are present as an emulsion and the average particle size of the one or more essential oils in the emulsion is about 25 microns or less. Embodiments of the present disclosure describe compositions for increasing the health and feed efficiency of an animal comprising one or more essential oils, wherein the one or more essential oils include at least thyme essential oil and cinnamaldehyde; and an emulsifier, wherein the one or more essential oils are present as an emulsion and the average particle size of the one or more essential oils in the emulsion is about 25 microns or less.

Embodiments of the present disclosure describe compositions for increasing the health and feed efficiency of an animal comprising one or more essential oils, wherein the one or more essential oils include at least thyme essential oil and cinnamon essential oil; and an emulsifier, wherein the one or more essential oils are present as an emulsion and the average particle size of the one or more essential oils in the emulsion is about 25 microns or less. Embodiments of the present disclosure describe compositions for increasing the health and feed efficiency of an animal comprising one or more essential oils, wherein the one or more essential oils include at least thyme essential oil and cinnamaldehyde; and an emulsifier, wherein the one or more essential oils are present as an emulsion and the average particle size of the one or more essential oils in the emulsion is about 25 microns or less.

The present invention relates to a method for feeding poultry during breeding, keeping or fattening of poultry, in which guanidinoacetic acid or a salt thereof is administered as a feed additive.

This disclosure describes methods to separate solids from liquids in a production facility. A process separates components in the process stream by applying non-condensable media to create density differences and then using a mechanical device to separate the solids from the liquids based on the density difference. The process produces the liquids and solids, which may be further processed to create valuable animal feed products.

A method and compound for promoting growth and priming the immune system in both animals and humans are disclosed. The disclosed method utilizes a compound derived from one or more of a lipopolysaccharide, Lipid A, and fractions, derivatives, and cellular components thereof of gram-negative bacteria. The compound is combined with conventional feed, such as corn-soy feed, for administration to animals, such as poultry. Human application is possible, as well. Kinomic analysis of tissues collected from sacrificed birds fed the dietary mixture of the inventive compound and conventional feed suggests that the biomass causes an alteration of signaling in multiple growth-related pathways. These pathways include, but are not limited to, those associated with the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK or MAP kinase), Ak strain transforming (Akt), and the neurotrophic tropomyosin-related kinase (NTRK). Evidence supports the conclusion that this alteration represents the modulation of the various pathways.

An apparatus and method for profit maximization and risk mitigation that uses nutrition modeling of animal, poultry and marine animals is a critical component of the respective enterprise optimization and managed environment pollution control. The optimization accuracy depends on the description of utilization efficiency of nutrients in a population of animals. Utilization efficiency of nutrients for meat production in a population are preferably based on at least three component parts of nutrient utilization, i.e., maintenance, linear gain, and non-linear gain, instead of one only. Efficiencies for maintenance and linear gain are fixed value(s), but nutrient efficiency is a result of intra-population variation and efficiency of linear gain, and affect profit. Similar processing is performed to obtain optimal crop growth and profit. Finally, one or both of the animal-growth optimization and the crop-growth optimization are combined with a profit-maximization and risk-mitigation processor to provide information for a decision maker.

Disclosed herein are embodiments of a combination and/or composition comprising a growth factor and one or more of silica, mineral clay, glucan, mannans, endoglucanohydrolase, yucca, quillaja, metal chelate, chromium compound, probiotic, polyphenol, direct fed microbial, copper species, vitamin, allicin, alliin, alliinase, yeast, growth promotant, preservative, antimicrobial, or vaccine. The growth factor may be an active growth factor such as an active insulin-like growth factor. Also disclosed are methods of administering the combination and/or composition to an animal. The combination and/or composition may provide a beneficial effect to the animal upon administration, such as, but not limited to, improved immune function, metabolism, milk production, growth, feed conversion, fertilization, reproduction, oocyte quality in a ruminant undergoing superovulation, embryo viability, muscle growth, muscle percentage, heart muscle development, egg product and/or quality, sperm production and/or quality, meat quality, or a combination thereof.

The invention relates to a process for preparing a composition comprising inactivated or killed Methanobrevibacter archaebacteria cells for incorporation in human food/tablets and/or animal feed/ tablets, the process comprising: a) collecting a liquid suspension of Methanobrevibacter archaebacteria cells; b) inactivating or killing said Methanobrevibacter archaebacteria cells in said liquid suspension; and c) freeze drying said liquid suspension to obtain an inactivated or killed Methanobrevibacter archaebacteria cell composition, said inactivated of killed Methanobrevibacter archaebacteria cells have preserved at least 80% of the microbe-associated-molecular-patterns (MAM PS) signal potential through the host pattern recognition receptor system. Furthermore, the invention also relates to a composition obtained according to said process, wherein the composition comprises at least 10.sup.8 inactivated or killed Methanobrevibacter archaebacteria cells per gram of said composition, for use in method for improving the resistance to intestinal pathogen infection and/or for reducing intestinal inflammation in a subject.

Methods, apparatuses, and systems the screening, analyzing and selecting microorganisms from complex heterogeneous communities, predicting and identifying functional relationships and interactions thereof, synthesizing microbial ensembles based thereon, and forming and administering endomicrobial feed supplements are disclosed. Methods for identifying and determining the absolute cell count of microorganism types and strains, along identifying the network relationships between active microorganisms and environmental parameters, are also disclosed.