Cattle are the prominent species, two parts are dedicated to small ruminants recording and to buffalo recording. Future challenges and opportunities for further development of ICAR and the definition of the future scenarios in the animal recording sector are also described.
A special section is dedicated to "Improving the health traits by recording and evaluation", where the past and future of animal recording and the use of animal recording data for genetic evaluation and breeding are defined. Another section deals with the "ICAR Reference Laboratory Network", where the reference systems, the principles and the practices for calibration system for routine milk testing are presented.
Includes EU national statistics data on the "Yearly enquiry on the situation of milk recording in member countries". Describes methodologies used at national level for milk recording, national data for milk production, the costs of recording and the productivity and numbers of recorded cattle at national level (divided by species and by herdbook). Edited by Juho Kyntäjä, Kyllikki Lampinen, Andrea Rosati, Cesare Mosconi

These problems are complicated by the discussion of animal welfare, the rapid changes in agricultural production and the economics of production. The following key topics are handled: alternatives to growth-promoting antibacterial agents; chronic inflammation and animal production; animal behaviour and welfare in intensive production systems; epidemiology of production diseases; new techniques in immunoprophylaxis; nutrition-immunology and production-immunology relationships; phosphorus nutrition - animal health and environmental concerns; application of genomics to production disease; role of specific fatty acids in animal health, reproduction, and performance; trace mineral nutrition and metabolism