WAEC Animal Husbandry 2017 past questions and answers

A cow's udder has four quarters, each with one teat.

Absorption is the passage of digested food from the gut into the blood.

Pedigree selection uses the records of an animal's parents and grandparents.

Chicken eggs hatch after about 21 days of incubation.

Whether an animal is a ruminant or monogastric (its digestive system) decides what feed it can use, e.g. roughage or concentrates.

Donkeys and horses have a simple stomach; the camel has a three-chambered stomach and chews the cud (pseudo-ruminant).

Tick eggs hatch on the ground; the larva (seed tick) climbs grass and is the first stage to attach to and feed on the animal.

Oxytocin causes milk let-down from the udder (and contraction of the uterus at birth).

Introduction of better breeds and selection of the best animals are improvement methods; isolation is a disease-control measure.

The tsetse fly carries trypanosomes from animal to animal when it sucks blood.

Birds are identified with numbered leg or wing bands; branding and ear notching are for cattle, pigs and other mammals.

The horse eats only plant material but has a simple stomach, digesting fibre in its large caecum; the pig is an omnivore.

Bacteria and protozoa in the rumen ferment and break down the fibre.

It shows a single ovary with developing yolks and one long oviduct: the reproductive tract of a hen.

I is the funnel that catches the yolk (infundibulum) and II the long section that adds albumen (magnum).

III is the shell gland (uterus) of the hen's oviduct, where the shell is laid down around the egg.

A buck is an uncastrated male (goat or rabbit); bullocks, hogs (barrows) and wethers are castrated.

Iron is needed to make haemoglobin; too little causes anaemia.

The albumen (egg white) supplies water and protein to the embryo and cushions it against shock.

N'Dama is a humpless (taurine) breed; White Fulani and Red Bororo are humped Zebu, and Keteku is a cross.

Heartwater is caused by a rickettsia passed on by the bont tick (Amblyomma).

Young lush forage (especially legumes) ferments fast and causes frothy bloat; wilting reduces this.

Artificial insemination does not need the male to mate with the female.

The ewe comes on heat about every 17 days, which falls in the 17–21 day range.

Birds are dewormed; docking, disbudding and weaning are done on mammals.

I points to the horny covering at the end of the foot: the hoof.

Overgrown hooves are trimmed to prevent lameness.

Poultry feathers are used to stuff pillows.

Branding puts a permanent mark on the skin to identify the animal.

Aspergillosis is caused by the Aspergillus fungus that grows on mouldy feed and litter.

Legumes fix nitrogen, so a grass-legume mixture increases soil fertility, not decreases it.

Semen is frozen and stored in liquid nitrogen at about −196 °C.

Fostering means a young animal is reared by a female that is not its mother.

The kidneys control how much water and salt is kept or passed out in urine (osmoregulation).

Bacillus anthracis causes anthrax.

Pueraria is a legume; the others are grasses.

Rigor mortis is the stiffening of muscles after death.

A ration is the feed given to an animal in a 24-hour period.

Foot and mouth disease is caused by a virus.

(a) Any six: old age of birds; moulting; disease and parasite attack; poor/unbalanced feeding (low protein, calcium); inadequate water; too little light (short day length); heat stress/poor ventilation; overcrowding; broodiness; poor breed/strain; stress from noise or handling; vices such as egg eating
(b) Any three: mouth; oesophagus; stomach; small intestine; large intestine/caecum; rectum; anus; liver; pancreas
(c) Any six: source of meat and milk; hides and skins for leather; source of income and employment; draught power/transport; manure; by-products (bone meal, blood meal, horns); foreign exchange; cultural uses (bride price, festivals); raw materials for industries
(d) Any five: food (protein) for humans; hatching to produce chicks; vaccine production; baking and confectionery; shampoo/cosmetics; source of income; eggshell as calcium in feed; research

Keep each point short and distinct.

(a) Extensive (free range); semi-intensive; intensive
(b) Any three: protects animals from bad weather; protects against thieves and predators; makes feeding, watering and other routines easier; helps disease control and record keeping; makes collection of eggs/manure easy
(c)(i) Deep litter, any four: litter manure is valuable; birds have room to exercise; less capital than battery cages; fewer leg and breast problems; birds' vices reduced if well managed; good for both layers and broilers
(ii) Battery cage, any four: more birds per unit space; clean eggs collected easily; egg eating and cannibalism reduced; easy to identify and cull poor layers; feed wastage low; less disease and parasite spread since birds do not touch droppings
(d)(i) Snailery, any three: cool, damp and shaded; well drained soft soil; escape-proof fence/net; protection from predators and direct sun; feeding and watering troughs
(ii) Grasscutter hutch/cage, any three: strong wire or concrete walls (grasscutters gnaw); well ventilated; easy to clean; protection from predators and rain; enough space with feeders and drinkers; cool, quiet place

Name three systems in (a); give separate advantages for each poultry system in (c).

(a) Digestion is the breakdown of large, insoluble food substances into small, soluble molecules that can be absorbed into the blood
(b) Any four differences (chicken vs goat): has a beak, no teeth vs has teeth/no upper incisors with a dental pad; has a crop vs no crop; has a gizzard to grind feed vs grinding done by chewing the cud; proventriculus (simple glandular stomach) vs four-chambered stomach (rumen, reticulum, omasum, abomasum); two caeca vs one caecum; ends in a cloaca vs ends in an anus; does not ruminate vs ruminates; little microbial digestion vs microbial digestion of fibre in rumen
(c) Any five: reseeding with better grasses and legumes; controlled/rotational grazing; controlled burning; fertilizer application; weed and bush control; provision of water points; erosion control; fallowing/resting; pest control
(d)(i) Carbohydrate: glucose/simple sugars (volatile fatty acids in ruminants) (ii) Protein: amino acids (iii) Fat and oil: fatty acids and glycerol
(e) Any four: growth (body building); repair of worn-out tissues; formation of enzymes and hormones; formation of antibodies; production of milk, eggs, wool; source of energy when in excess
(f) Any two: trypsin; amylase; lipase; maltase; sucrase; lactase; peptidase/erepsin

In (b) set out the differences in two columns, one for each animal.

(a) Any three: meat (chevon); milk; skin for leather; manure; income; social/religious uses; control of bush/weeds
(b)(i) Oestrus is the period when a female animal is on heat and will accept the male for mating
(ii) Any three: swollen, reddish vulva; mucus discharge; restlessness and grunting; loss of appetite; standing still when pressed on the back (stands for the boar); mounting other pigs; ears erect
(c) I: cattle; II: calving; III: calf; IV: doe/nanny; V: kidding; VI: kid; VII: sheep; the adult female in the third row: ewe; IX: lamb; X: pig; the adult female in the fourth row: sow; XII: farrowing

Fill each Roman numeral in (c) with one word.

(a) Any four: supply energy; produce body heat/keep body warm; stored as fat for later energy; spare protein for growth; fibre aids digestion/gut movement; milk sugar (lactose) and milk fat production
(b) Any four: nostrils/nose; pharynx; larynx; trachea; bronchi; bronchioles; lungs/alveoli; diaphragm; air sacs (poultry)
(c) Any two: pneumonia; tuberculosis; contagious bovine pleuropneumonia; chronic respiratory disease (poultry); Newcastle disease; aspergillosis; peste des petits ruminants
(d)(i) Exhalation: breathing out, the movement of air carrying carbon dioxide out of the lungs
(ii) Inhalation: breathing in, drawing air rich in oxygen into the lungs
(iii) Peristalsis: wave-like contractions of the gut wall muscles that push food along the alimentary canal
(iv) Ovulation: release of a mature egg (ovum) from the ovary
(v) Rumination: chewing the cud, bringing swallowed food back to the mouth to chew it again (in ruminants)

Give a one-sentence definition for each term in (d).

(a) Animal improvement is the use of breeding and management methods to produce animals with better qualities (yield, growth, disease resistance) than their parents
(b)(i) Introduction: bringing in new breeds (often exotic) from another area or country to use alone or to cross with local animals
(ii) Advantages, any three: quick way to get high-yielding animals; brings in new desirable genes; can be crossed with local breeds for hybrid vigour; improves product quality. Disadvantages, any three: introduced animals may not adapt to the climate; may bring in new diseases; expensive to import and maintain; need better feed and management; local breeds may be lost
(c)(i) Progeny selection (progeny testing): choosing parent animals by judging the performance of their offspring
(ii) Any five: high yield (milk, eggs, meat); fast growth rate; good feed conversion; disease resistance; high fertility/prolificacy; good mothering ability; adaptation to climate; good conformation; docility
(d) Any three: one male can serve many females; prevents spread of venereal diseases; semen can be stored and transported; reduces cost of keeping males; allows use of very large or dead superior males

Define, then give the separate advantages and disadvantages asked for.