Annie Williams
I grew up in rural Lincolnshire, but moved around a lot during my twenties, primarily to study at University of Liverpool, University of Nottingham and Harper Adams University. I now live in Shropshire having completed my PhD at Harper Adams and fallen in love with the county. For all of my early career I worked for a mineral bolus company alongside my academic pursuits, but changed to work in Business Development for the Centre for Innovation Excellence in Livestock, one of the UK Agri-tech centres in February 2022. In this role I enjoy working with and connecting stakeholders across the livestock supply chain to facilitate innovation. Separately, I also conduct some mineral consultancy for vets, farmers and nutritionists all over the UK and Ireland.
Minerals for ruminants - Are we getting it right?
The Richard Lawes Foundation
Study Overview
Minerals are often the last consideration when formulating and analysing diets for ruminants but it is vital that mineral nutrition is optimised for maximum animal performance and efficiency which also gives economic return and is sustainable. Minerals affect almost every process within the animal and a diet below or in excess of requirement can have negative impacts. I will explore the differences in recommended dietary supply and diagnostic reference ranges in different countries and investigate regulation of different types of mineral supplements across the world. Aiming to address whether we can improve the advice around mineral supplementation for dairy, beef and sheep.