Citation: Kioumarsi, H., Davani , S. M., & Karimov, S. (2025). Technological Advancements in Animal Husbandry. Research Communities by Springer Nature. https://communities.springernature.com/posts/technological-advancements-in-animal-husbandry

Introduction

Animal husbandry is very important for providing food,jobs, and for creating a healthy and sustainable society. Nutritional management and disease control in animal husbandry form a critical part of realizing animal welfare, productivity, and health. Technology advancements have come to play an ever-growing central role in enhancing these practices to make animal production more precise, efficient, and effective. This short review discusses the scientific literature on how technology is transforming nutritional and disease control in animal husbandry to increase animal production efficiency and improve animal health outcomes.

Nutrition

Scientific nutrition and proper management of livestock are important to keep animals healthy. Species-specific, age-specific, and physiological state-specific feeding boosts the immune system, growth, and production capacity. An example is colostrum management in newborn animals. Nutrition also involves development of rations that are conducive to metabolic and immune well-being at different phases of production, such as dry cows, lactating cows, and growing heifers. Transition diets that contribute to minimizing disruptions to metabolism during pre-calving, complemented with balancing nutrients to meet requirements and prevent disorders like acidosis in lactation are also crucial.

Technology

Technological improvements have amplified nutrition through precision feeding systems that optimize the delivery of nutrients according to distinct animal needs and thus avoid excess or deficiency. It not only contributes to animal health but also reduces waste in the environment. Using artificial intelligence in animal husbandry, sensor-equipped automated feeders and data analysis enable real-time monitoring improves efficiency and reducing costs. It shoud be also emphasize that new developments in nutritional supplements such as probiotics, prebiotics, and bioactive compounds have been developed for improving gut health and immunity and reducing disease frequency without antibiotics. Nanotechnology and micro-delivery systems also await on the horizon to improve effective nutrient absorption and drug delivery in animals.

Disease Management

The most important problems in livestock industry are nutrition and disease control. Disease prevention and control have also been optimally improved by technology. Herd health monitoring has been advanced using data-based methods to support improved vaccination programs that offer timely and strategic immunization adapted to disease risk patterns. Wearable health monitoring equipment and biosensors continuously check for vital signs and behavioral changes, allowing illness to be detected early and veterinary care sought immediately. Moreover, precision livestock farming also employs technologies such as artificial intelligence to analyze large data sets with regard to nutrition, health, and environment and forecast disease breakouts and optimize management protocols.

Management for Sustainable Production

The enhancement of nutrition and disease management by technology promotes sustainable livestock production. Biosecurity protocols, hygiene, and stress minimization are combined with nutritional and health information for overall management strategies. In-depth record-keeping systems facilitate traceability and knowledge-based decision-making, promoting welfare standards and regulatory compliance. The focus on sustainability includes rotational grazing and technology-inclined pasture management to ensure optimum forage quality and animal nutrition while upholding environmental integrity.

New and innovative methods are being employed to produce healthier and more sustainable dairy products, such as making them richer with the use of natural ingredients. The advantage of using these natural ingredients is that they facilitate making products more sustainable, which is why it is crucial that more such methods are employed.

Another point which is important to create a sustainable animal husbandry system is to consider the agricultural climate action. The agriculture sector is both a substantial emitter, mainly of methane from enteric fermentation in animals and nitrous oxide from fertilized fields, and a main contributor to climate change. Recent studies emphasize the important of using holistic approaches to achieve net-zero emissions in animal husbandry, with a focus on emission reduction approaches, monitoring systems, and enabling policy environments.

 Challenges

As great as the advances have been, issues with the cost of technology adoption, farmer training needs, and data management complexities remain. Future research strives to encourage low-cost and easy-to-use technologies as well as multisource data integration in the holistic management of animal health. Emerging technologies in genomics, metabolomics, and AI-driven diagnostic technologies have the potential for further breakthroughs in personalized nutrition and pre-emptive disease control.

Conclusion

Technological advancements are changing the way nutrition and disease control in animal husbandry are done. The developments allow for accurate feeding regimes, early diagnosis of diseases, efficient vaccination, and genetic enhancement that altogether contribute to the welfare, productivity, and health of animals and sustainable farming practices. Continued use of advanced technology combined with conventional husbandry is very promising for the livestock production industry in the future.

References

Best Management Practices. (2013). Key livestock health and nutrition strategies for disease prevention and productivity. Cornell University Animal Health Diagnostic Center.

Berckmans, D. (2017). General introduction to precision livestock farming. Animal Frontiers, 7(1), 6–11. https://doi.org/10.2527/af.2017.0102

Eisler, M. C., Lee, M. R., Tarlton, J. F., Martin, G. B., Beddington, J., Dungait, J. A., Greathead, H., Liu, J., Mathew, S., Miller, H., Misselbrook, T., Murray, P., Vinod, V. K., Van Saun, R., & Winter, M. (2014). Agriculture: Steps to sustainable livestock. Nature, 507(7490), 32–34. https://doi.org/10.1038/507032a

Groher, T., Heitkämper, K., & Umstätter, C. (2020). Digital technology adoption in livestock production with a special focus on ruminant farming. Animal : an international journal of animal bioscience, 14(11), 2404–2413. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1751731120001391

Hernandez-Patlan, D., Tellez-Isaias, G., Hernandez-Velasco, X., & Solis-Cruz, B. (2023). Editorial: Technological strategies to improve animal health and production. Frontiers in veterinary science, 10, 1206170. https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2023.1206170

Kalavari, L., Nasiri, N., Ahmadian, F., & Kioumarsi, H. (2022). Enrichment of doogh with olive leaf extract and investigation of its physicochemical, microbial, and sensory properties during storage at room temperature and refrigerator. Journal of Multidisciplinary Applied Natural Science, 3(1), 34–42. https://doi.org/10.47352/jmans.2774-3047.143

Kang, D., Lungu, S. E., Danso, F., Dzou, C. F., Chen, Y., Zheng, X., Nie, F., Lin, H., Chen, J., & Zhou, G. (2025). Animal health and nutrition: metabolic disorders in cattle and improvement strategies. Frontiers in veterinary science, 12, 1470391. https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2025.1470391

Rosati A. (2025). Guiding principles of AI: application in animal husbandry and other considerations. Animal Frontiers: The Review Magazine of Animal Agriculture, 14(6), 3–10. https://doi.org/10.1093/af/vfae045

Rosen, A. R., Kioumarsi, H., & Gholipour Fereidouni, H. (2025). Climate action and net-zero emissions. European Journal of Sustainable Development Research, 9(4), em0334. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejosdr/16864

Souza, C. V., B Gleason, C., P Price, T., R Dos Reis, B., Sujani, S., C Davis, T., M Liebe, D., M Daniels, K., & R White, R. (2025). Production responses of dairy cows to precision feeding based on historical performance during short-term changes in supplementation. Journal of animal science, 103, skaf317. https://doi.org/10.1093/jas/skaf317

Taslimi, K., Jafarikhorshidi, K., Irani, M., & Kioumarsi, H. (2021). The effect of substitution of extruded soybean meal (ESM) on growth performance, carcass characteristics, immune responses, biochemical variables of blood, and nutrient digestibility of ileal in broiler chickens. Scientific Reports, 11(1). https://sarpublication.com/articles/569/