Aditi Sinha
July 14, 2023 03:15
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Prepare effectively for the UPSC exam with Animal Husbandry & Veterinary Science optional. Understand the syllabus, strategies, and resources for success.
In this article, we’ll help you understand the syllabus in detail, share some useful strategies, and offer valuable resources to help you prepare better. Let’s work together to do well in the UPSC exam with Animal Husbandry & Veterinary Science as your trusted companion.
Animal Husbandry & Veterinary Science optional of UPSC has been designed in a precise manner, making it easier for candidates to score well in this subject. You can go through the following article to understand the nuances of preparing for the optional.
Animal Husbandry & Veterinary Science is a subject that focuses on the care and management of animals, as well as the medical treatment of their diseases.
Candidates from medical field or veterinary doctors choose this subject as an optional due to familiarity with the subject. They believe that the subject has high scoring potential. Candidates have to study topics related to animal husbandry, veterinary science, and other related fields.
Animal husbandry and Veterinary Science optional has a potential to score very high marks if the core concepts are understood. Following are some of the other benefits of selecting the subject:
In the UPSC Mains Exam, Animal Husbandry & Veterinary Science is the subject that you can choose as an optional. This subject consists of two papers, Paper I and Paper II, each carrying 250 marks, making a total of 500 marks.
In Paper 1 of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Science, candidates will learn about animal nutrition, physiology, reproduction, livestock production and management, and genetics, and animal breeding.
Paper 2 will cover topics such as Anatomy, Pharmacology, Hygiene, Animal Diseases, Veterinary Public Health, Milk Products & Technology, and Meat Hygiene & Technology.
The syllabus for both Paper I and Paper II is provided below to give you a detailed understanding of what you will be learning.
| 1. Animal Nutrition | 1.1 Partitioning of food energy within the animal. Direct and indirect calorimetry. Carbon—nitrogen balance and comparative slaughter methods. Systems for expressing the energy value of foods in ruminants, pigs, and poultry. Energy requirements for maintenance, growth, pregnancy, lactation, egg, wool, and meat production. |
| 1.2 Latest advances in protein nutrition. Energy protein interrelationships. Evaluation of protein quality. Use of NPN compounds in ruminant diets.
Protein requirements for maintenance, growth, pregnancy, lactation, egg, wool, and meat production. |
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| 1.3 Major and trace minerals—Their sources, physiological functions, and deficiency symptoms. Toxic minerals. Mineral interactions. Role of fat-soluble and water-soluble vitamins in the body, their sources, and deficiency symptoms. | |
| 1.4 Feed additives—methane inhibitors, probiotics, enzymes, antibiotics, hormones, oligosaccharides, antioxidants, emulsifiers, mold inhibitors, buffers, etc. Use and abuse of growth promoters like hormones and antibiotics—latest concepts. | |
| 1.5 Conservation of fodders. Storage of feeds and feed ingredients. Recent advances in feed technology and feed processing. Anti-nutritional and toxic factors are present in livestock feeds. Feed analysis and quality control. Digestibility trials—direct, indirect, and indicator methods. Predicting feed intake in grazing animals. | |
| 1.6 Advances in ruminant nutrition. Nutrient requirements. Balanced rations. Feeding of calves, pregnant, work animals, and breeding bulls. Strategies for feeding milch animals during different stages of the lactation cycle. Effect of feeding on milk composition. Feeding of goats for meat and milk production. Feeding sheep for meat and wool production. | |
| 1.7 Swine Nutrition. Nutrient requirements. Creep, starter, grower, and finisher rations. Feeding of pigs for lean meat production. Low-cost rations for swine. | |
| 1.8 Poultry nutrition. Special features of poultry nutrition. Nutrient requirements for meat and egg production. Formulation of rations for different classes of layers and broilers. | |
| 2. Animal Physiology | 2.1 Physiology of blood and its circulation, respiration, excretion. Endocrine glands in health and disease. |
| 2.2 Blood constituents—Properties and functions-blood cell formation. Haemoglobin synthesis and chemistry-plasma proteins production, classification and properties, coagulation of blood; Haemorrhagic disorders—anticoagulants—blood groups—Blood volume—Plasma expanders-Buffer systems in blood. Biochemical tests and their significance in disease diagnosis. | |
| 2.3 Circulation—Physiology of heart, cardiac cycle, heart sounds, heart-beat, electrocardiograms. Work and efficiency of heart—effect of ions on heart function. Metabolism of cardiac muscle, nervous and chemical regulation of heart, the effect of temperature and stress on heart, blood pressure and hypertension, osmotic regulation, arterial pulse, vasomotor regulation of circulation, shock. Coronary and pulmonary circulation, Blood-Brain barrier Cerebrospinal fluid-circulation in birds. | |
| 2.4 Respiration—Mechanism of respiration, Transport, and exchange of gases-Neural control of respiration-Chemo-receptors Hypoxia Respiration in birds. | |
| 2.5 Excretion—Structure and function of kidney-Formation of urine: methods of studying renal function-renal regulation of acid-base balance; Physiological constituents of urine-Renal failure-Passive venous congestion-Urinary secretion in chicken-Sweat glands and their function. Biochemical test for urinary dysfunction. | |
| 2.7 Endocrine glands—Functional disorders—their symptoms and diagnosis.
Synthesis of hormones, mechanism and control of secretion—hormonal receptors-classification and function. |
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| 2.8 Growth and Animal Production—Prenatal and postnatal growth, maturation, growth curves, measures of growth, factors affecting growth, conformation, body composition, meat quality. Physiology of Milk Production, Reproduction and Digestion—Current status of hormonal control of mammary development, milk secretion, and milk ejection.
Male and Female reproductive organs, their components, and functions. Digestive organs and their functions. |
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| 2.9 Environmental Physiology—Physiological relations and their regulation;
Mechanisms of adaptation; Environmental factors and regulatory mechanisms involved in animal behavior; Climatology—various parameters and their importance. Animal ecology. Physiology of behavior. Effect of stress on health and production. |
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| 3. Animal Reproduction | Semen quality—Preservation and Artificial Insemination—Components of semen, the composition of spermatozoa, chemical and physical properties of ejaculated semen, factors affecting semen in vivo and in vitro. Factors affecting semen production and quality, preservation, the composition of diluents, sperm concentration, and transport of diluted semen. Deep freezing techniques in cows, sheep, goats, swine, and poultry. Detection of oestrus and time of insemination for better conception. Anoestrus and repeat breeding. |
| 4. Livestock Production and Management | 4.1 Commercial Dairy Farming—Comparison of dairy farming in India with advanced countries. Dairying under mixed farming and as specialized farming, economic dairy farming. Starting of a dairy farm, Capital and land requirement, organization of the dairy farm. Opportunities in dairy farming, factors determining the efficiency of dairy animals. Herd recording, budgeting cost of milk production, pricing policy, Personnel Management. Developing Practical and Economic rations for dairy cattle; Supply of greens throughout the year, feed and fodder requirements of Dairy Farm. Feeding regimes for young stock and bulls, heifers, and breeding animals; New trends in feeding young and adult stock; Feeding records. |
| 4.2 Commercial meat, egg, and wool production—Development of practical and economic rations for sheep, goats, pigs, rabbits, and poultry.
Supply of greens, fodder, and feeding regimes for young and mature stock. New trends in enhancing production and management. Capital and land requirements and socio-economic concepts. |
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| 4.3 Feeding and management of animals under drought, flood, and other natural calamities. | |
| 5. Genetics and Animal Breeding | 5.1 History of animal genetics. Mitosis and Meiosis: Mendelian inheritance;
Deviations to Mendelian genetics; Expression of genes; Linkage and crossing over; Sex determination, sex influenced and sex-limited characters; Blood groups and polymorphism; Chromosome aberrations; Cytoplasmic inheritance, Gene and its structure; DNA as a genetic material; Genetic code and protein synthesis; Recombinant DNA technology. Mutations, types of mutations, methods for detecting mutations and mutation rate, Transgenesis. |
| 5.2 Population Genetics Applied to Animal Breeding—Quantitative Vs. Qualitative traits; Hardy Weinberg Law; Population Vs. Individual; Gene and genotypic frequency; Forces changing gene frequency; Random drift and small populations; Theory of path coefficient; Inbreeding, methods of estimating inbreeding coefficient, systems of inbreeding; Effective population size; Breeding value, estimation of breeding value, dominance, and epistatic deviation; Partitioning of variation; Genotype X environment correlation and genotype X environment interaction; The role of multiple measurements; Resemblance between relatives. | |
| 5.3 Breeding Systems—Breeds of livestock and Poultry.
Heritability, repeatability, and genetic and phenotypic correlations, their methods of estimation and precision of estimates; Aids to selection and their relative merits; Individual, pedigree, family, and within family selection; Pregnancy testing; Methods of selection; Construction of selection indices and their uses; Comparative evaluation of genetic gains through various selection methods; Indirect selection and correlated response; Inbreeding, outbreeding, upgrading, cross-breeding and synthesis of breeds; Crossing of inbred lines for commercial production; Selection for general and specific combining ability; Breeding for threshold characters. Sire index. |
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| 6. Extension | Basic philosophy, objectives, concept, and principles of extension. Different Methods were adopted to educate farmers under rural conditions. Generation of technology, its transfer, and feedback. Problems and constraints in transfer of technology. Animal husbandry programs for rural development. |
| 1. Anatomy, Pharmacology and Hygiene | 1.1 Histology and Histological Techniques: Paraffin embedding technique of tissue processing and H.E. staining—Freezing microtome—Microscopy Bright field microscope and electron microscope. Cytology-structure of cell organelles and inclusions; cell division-cell types—Tissues and their classification-embryonic and adult tissues—Comparative histology of organs—Vascular, Nervous, digestive, respiratory, musculoskeletal, and urogenital systems—Endocrine glands—Integumentary—sense organs. |
| 1.2 Embryology: Embryology of vertebrates with special reference to aves and domestic mammal’s gametogenesis-fertilization-germ layers-foetal membranes and placentation-types of the placenta in domestic mammals-Teratology-twins and twinning-organogenesis-germ layer derivatives-endodermal, mesodermal and ectodermal derivatives. | |
| 1.3 Bovine Anatomy: Regional Anatomy: Paranasal sinuses of OX— surface anatomy of salivary glands. Regional anatomy of infraorbital, maxillary, mandi-tubuloalveolar, mental, and corneal nerve block. Regional anatomy of paravertebral nerves, pudendal nerve, median, ulnar and radial nerve tibial, fibular, and digital nerves—Cranial nerves-structures involved in epidural anaesthesia-superficial lymph nodes-surface anatomy of visceral organs of thoracic, abdominal, and pelvic cavities-comparative-features of locomotor apparatus and their application in the biomechanics of the mammalian body. | |
| 1.4 Anatomy of Fowl: Musculo-skeletal system-functional anatomy in relation to respiration and flying, digestion, and egg production. | |
| 1.5 Pharmacology and therapeutics drugs: Cellular level of pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics. Drugs acting on fluids and electrolyte balance. Drugs acting on the Autonomic nervous system. Modern concepts of anesthesia and dissociative anesthetics. Autacoids. Antimicrobials and principles of chemotherapy in microbial infections. Use of hormones in therapeutics—chemotherapy of parasitic infections. Drug and economic concerns in the Edible tissues of animals—chemotherapy of Neoplastic diseases. Toxicity due to “insecticides, plants, metals, non-metals, zootoxins, and mycotoxins.” | |
| 1.6 Veterinary Hygiene with reference to water, air, and habitation: Assessment of pollution of water, air, and soil—Importance of climate in animal health—effect of environment on animal function and performance relationship between industrialization and animal agriculture—animal housing requirements for specific categories of domestic animals viz. pregnant cows and sows, milking cows, broiler birds—stress, strain and productivity in relation to animal habitation. | |
| 2. Animal Diseases | 2.1 Etiology, epidemiology pathogenesis, symptoms, postmortem lesions, diagnosis, and control of infectious diseases of cattle, sheep and goat, horses, pigs and poultry |
| 2.2 Etiology, epidemiology, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment of production diseases of cattle, horse, pig, and poultry. | |
| 2.3 Deficiency diseases of domestic animals and birds. | |
| 2.4 Diagnosis and treatment of non-specific conditions like impaction, Bloat, Diarrhoea, Indigestion, dehydration, stroke, and poisoning. | |
| 2.5 Diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders. | |
| 2.6 Principles and methods of immunization of animals against specific diseases—hard immunity—disease-free zones— ‘zero’ disease concept—chemoprophylaxis. | |
| 2.7 Anaesthesia—local, regional, and general-pre-anaesthetic medication. Symptoms and surgical interference in fractures and dislocation. Hernia, choking abomasal displacement—Caesarian operations. Rumenotomy—Castrations. | |
| 2.7 Disease investigation techniques —Materials for laboratory investigation—Establishment. Animal Health Centres—Disease-free zone. | |
| 3. Veterinary Public Health | 3.1 Zoonoses – Classification, definition, the role of animals and birds in prevalence and transmission of zoonotic diseases—occupational zoonotic diseases. |
| 3.2 Epidemiology – Principle, the definition of epidemiological terms, application of epidemiological measures in the study of diseases, and disease control. Epidemiological features of air, water, and foodborne infections.
OIE regulation, WTO, sanitary and phytosanitary measures. |
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| 3.3 Veterinary Jurisprudence – Rules and Regulations for improvement of animal quality and prevention of animal diseases—State and Central Rules for prevention of animal and animal product borne diseases—S.P. C.A.—Veterolegal cases—Certificates—Materials and Methods of collection of samples for vetero legal investigation. | |
| 4. Milk and Milk Products Technology | 4.1 Market Milk – Quality, testing, and grading of raw milk. Processing, packaging, storing, distribution, marketing defects, and their control.
Preparation of the following kinds of milk: Pasteurized, standardized, toned, double-toned, sterilized, homogenized, reconstituted, recombined, and flavored kinds of milk. Preparation of cultured kinds of milk, cultures and their management, yogurt, Dahi, Lassi, and Srikhand. Preparation of flavoured and sterilized kinds of milk. Legal standards. Sanitation requirements for clean and safe milk and for the milk plant equipment |
| 4.2 Milk Products Technology – Selection of raw materials, processing, storing, distributing, and marketing milk products such as Cream, Butter, Ghee, Khoa, Channa, Cheese, condensed, evaporated, dried milk and baby food, ice cream, and Kulfi; by-products, whey products, buttermilk, lactose, and casein. Testing, grading, and judging milk products—BIS and Agmark specifications, legal standards, quality control nutritive properties. Packaging processing and operational control. Costing of dairy products. | |
| 5. Meat Hygiene and Technology | 5.1 Meat Hygiene
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5.2 Meat Technology
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| 5.3 By‐products – Slaughterhouse by-products and their utilization—Edible and inedible by-products—Social and economic implications of proper utilization of slaughterhouse by-products—Organ products for food and pharmaceuticals. | |
| 5.4 Poultry Products Technology – Chemical composition and nutritive value of poultry meat, pre-slaughter care, and management. Slaughtering techniques, inspection, and preservation of poultry meat and products. Legal and BIS standards. Structure composition and nutritive value of eggs Microbial spoilage. Preservation and maintenance. Marketing of poultry meat, eggs, and products. | |
| 5.5 Rabbit/Fur Animal Farming– Rabbit meat production. Disposal and utilization of fur and wool and recycling of waste by-products. Grading of wool. |
Selecting the right study material will help candidates to score high marks. Compared to other subjects, there are higher sources for candidates to refer to such as:
| Paper 1 | Paper 2 |
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Before starting preparation for the subject, candidates have to develop their own strategies to clear the exam. The detailed strategy may differ from candidate to candidate but the over-all technique remains the same.
Candidates preparing for the subject can find the previous year question paper from the UPSC website. The following is the link for downloading previous year question papers:
| UPSC CSE Public Administration Optional PYQ 2023 | Paper 1: Public Administration Optional |
| Paper 2: Public Administrative Optional | |
| UPSC CSE Public Administration Optional PYQ 2022 | Paper 1: Public Administration Optional |
| Paper 2: Public Administration Optional | |
| UPSC CSE Public Administration Optional PYQ 2021 | Paper 1: Public Administration Optional |
| Paper 2: Public Administration Optional | |
| UPSC CSE Public Administration Optional PYQ 2020 | Paper 1: Public Administration Optional |
| Paper 2: Public Administration Optional |
Animal husbandry and Veterinary Science is one of those subjects that give higher scores if prepared in a holistic manner. This scoring potential of the subject will enable candidates to qualify the mains examination.
However, time management is of utmost importance. Due to its lengthy nature, the subject will consume a larger time of the candidate.
| Must Read | |
| NCERT Notes For UPSC | UPSC Daily Current Affairs |
| UPSC Blogs | UPSC Daily Editorials |
| Daily Current Affairs Quiz | Daily Main Answer Writing |
| UPSC Mains Previous Year Papers | UPSC Test Series 2024 |
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