An animal nutritionist is a person who specializes in animal nutrition, which is especially concerned with the dietary needs of

animals in captivity Animal captivity is the confinement of domestic and wild animals. More specifically, animals that are held by humans and prevented from escaping are said to be in captivity. The term animal captivity is usually applied to wild animals that are he ...

livestock Livestock are the Domestication, domesticated animals that are raised in an Agriculture, agricultural setting to provide labour and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, Egg as food, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The t ...

pets A pet, or companion animal, is an animal kept primarily for a person's company or entertainment rather than as a working animal, livestock, or a laboratory animal. Popular pets are often considered to have attractive/ cute appearances, int ...

, and animals in

wildlife rehabilitation Wildlife rehabilitation is the process of caring for injured, sick, orphaned, or displaced wild animals with the goal of releasing them back into their natural habitat. It involves medical treatment, temporary housing, and specialized care for a ...

facilities. The science of animal nutrition encompasses principles of

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

(especially

biochemistry Biochemistry, or biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology, a ...

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

, and

ethology Ethology is a branch of zoology that studies the behavior, behaviour of non-human animals. It has its scientific roots in the work of Charles Darwin and of American and German ornithology, ornithologists of the late 19th and early 20th cen ...

(animal behavior). Animal nutrition in the

food industry The food industry is a complex, global network of diverse businesses that supplies most of the food consumed by the world's population. The food industry today has become highly diversified, with manufacturing ranging from small, traditional, ...

may also be concerned with

economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

and

food processing Food processing is the transformation of agricultural products into food, or of one form of food into other forms. Food processing takes many forms, from grinding grain into raw flour, home cooking, and complex industrial methods used in the mak ...

Education

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

in agricultural, biological or related life sciences is usually required. A typical course would study the

metabolism Metabolism (, from ''metabolē'', "change") is the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms. The three main functions of metabolism are: the conversion of the energy in food to energy available to run cellular processes; the co ...

protein Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residue (biochemistry), residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including Enzyme catalysis, catalysing metab ...

carbohydrate A carbohydrate () is a biomolecule composed of carbon (C), hydrogen (H), and oxygen (O) atoms. The typical hydrogen-to-oxygen atomic ratio is 2:1, analogous to that of water, and is represented by the empirical formula (where ''m'' and ''n'' ...

lipid Lipids are a broad group of organic compounds which include fats, waxes, sterols, fat-soluble vitamins (such as vitamins A, D, E and K), monoglycerides, diglycerides, phospholipids, and others. The functions of lipids include storing ...

minerals In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid substance with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2011): M ...

vitamin Vitamins are Organic compound, organic molecules (or a set of closely related molecules called vitamer, vitamers) that are essential to an organism in small quantities for proper metabolism, metabolic function. Nutrient#Essential nutrients, ...

s and water, and the relationship between these nutrients and animal production. A

Master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

in nutrition is often seen in animal nutrition and the field requires a Ph.D. in the science of nutrition.

Career activities

Those with an educational background can expect to be employed in the following areas: *Evaluating the chemical and

nutritional value Nutritional value or nutritive value as part of food quality is the measure of a well-balanced ratio of the essential nutrients carbohydrates, fat, protein, minerals, and vitamins in items of food or diet concerning the nutrient requirements of ...

of various animal feeds, feed supplements,

grass Poaceae ( ), also called Gramineae ( ), is a large and nearly ubiquitous family (biology), family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos, the grasses of natural grassland and spe ...

and

forage Forage is a plant material (mainly plant leaves and stems) eaten by grazing livestock. Historically, the term ''forage'' has meant only plants eaten by the animals directly as pasture, crop residue, or immature cereal crops, but it is also used m ...

for livestock, recreational animals such as

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 mi ...

s and

ponies A pony is a type of small horse, usually measured under a specified height at maturity. Ponies often have thicker coats, manes and tails, compared to larger horses, and proportionally shorter legs, wider barrels, heavier , thicker necks and s ...

pet food Pet food is animal feed intended for consumption by pets. Typically sold in pet stores and supermarkets, it is usually specific to the type of animal, such as dog food or cat food. Most meat used for animals is a byproduct of the human food indus ...

s for companion animals,

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

, and

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

s *Nutritional disorders and the preservation of feeds *Diet formulation and ration size *Diets for performance and health *Diets for reproduction of animals *Economics of feeding systems *Dietary regimens *Animal studies and laboratory trials *Marketing strategies for new food formulas *Quality control and performance of feeds *Investigating nutritional disorders and diet-related diseases

Notable animal nutritionists

* Martin R. Dinnes, Ph.D. * Chantal Kaboré-Zoungrana Ph.D. (former head of the national

Burkina Faso Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa, bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Ivory Coast to the southwest. It covers an area of 274,223 km2 (105,87 ...

National Biosafety Agency).

External links

Auburn University Department of Animal NutritionIowa State University Department of Animal Nutrition

Cal Poly Animal Sciences

References

{{Reflist Veterinary professions Dog-related professions and professionals Animal care occupations