Overview
Nutrition is vital for the care and husbandry of animals. With livestock, it is important to know how to feed animals adequately so that they grow and reproduce at rates which are economically sound so that an enterprise functions in a sustainable manner. This unit is designed to equip you with the practical application of nutritional principles in ruminant and monogastric production systems. Animal nutrition focuses on digestion, absorption, and metabolism of feed and how the different dietary nutrients are used to maintain life or assimilated into products. In order for a feed to be consumed and utilised by an animal, it has to be palatable, digestible, absorbable and metabolisable to be utilised into energy and structural components. You will develop an understanding of this series of events while covering a range of animals (ruminants and simple-stomached). This unit also covers the constituents of feed and the capacity of the different classes of feeds to supply the animal with nutrients to meet its requirements for maintenance, growth, and production, as well as various processing of feed so that it is safer, more palatable and more nutritious.
Details
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites
Completion of 48 credit points.
Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).
Offerings For Term 2 - 2026
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Class Timetable
Assessment Overview
Assessment Grading
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of 'pass' in order to pass the unit. If any 'pass/fail' tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully ('pass' grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the 'assessment task' section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%). Consult the University's Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades.
All University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
You may wish to view these policies:
- Grades and Results Policy
- Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework)
- Review of Grade Procedure
- Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure
- Monitoring Academic Progress (MAP) Policy and Procedure - Domestic Students
- Monitoring Academic Progress (MAP) Policy and Procedure - International Students
- Student Refund and Credit Balance Policy and Procedure
- Student Feedback - Compliments and Complaints Policy and Procedure
- Information and Communications Technology Acceptable Use Policy and Procedure
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
- Define the form and function of anatomical features of the digestive systems of different species of domestic animals
- Identify the general features of the different classes of feeds and the constituents of feeds
- Design, formulate and analyse diets from first principal using feed and animal requirement tables
- Communicate nutritional principles in the feeding of various animal species and articulate potential solutions to common nutritional problems.
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| 1 - Online Quiz(zes) - 40% | ||||
| 2 - Written Assessment - 30% | ||||
| 3 - Written Assessment - 30% | ||||
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| 1 - Communication | ||||
| 2 - Problem Solving | ||||
| 3 - Critical Thinking | ||||
| 4 - Information Literacy | ||||
| 5 - Team Work | ||||
| 6 - Information Technology Competence | ||||
| 7 - Cross Cultural Competence | ||||
| 8 - Ethical practice | ||||
| 9 - Social Innovation | ||||
| 10 - First Nations Knowledges | ||||
| 11 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultures | ||||