Fabio Napolitano

Università degli Studi della Basilicata | UniBas · School of Agricultural, Forestry and Environmental Sciences

The present review aims to analyze the anatomical and physiological characteristics of the mammary gland and udders of water buffalo by making an anatomofunctional comparison with dairy cattle. It will also discuss the knowledge generated around the physiological regulation of milk ejection in the water buffalo. It was found that buffalo’s average...

Heat stress is a condition that can affect the health, performance, and welfare of farm animals. The perception of thermal stress leads to the activation of the autonomic nervous system to start a series of physiological and behavioral mechanisms to restore thermostability. One of these mechanisms is vasodilation of peripheral blood vessels to incr...

Simple Summary Livestock transport is a stressor with potential physiological, psychological, and financial consequences that can alter animal welfare, particularly in water buffalo, a species that has certain anatomical characteristics that make them susceptible to heat stress. Stress-induced hyperthermia is frequently observed in mobilized livest...

Simple Summary Global warming (GW) is a current challenge for livestock systems, including water buffalo farms. Buffaloes have anatomical traits such as thick skin and a high density of capillaries and arterioles to improve sensitive heat losses. However, they are exposed to high temperatures and tropical and humid climates that make them susceptib...

The black stork is an endangered species in many countries, due to its low adaptability to environmental changes and its sensitivity to anthropogenic disturbances. In Italy, the most recent report on the species’ nesting sites lists only 36 pairs, of which 16 are in Basilicata, 7 are in Calabria, 4 are in Piedmont and Molise and 1 is in Campania. T...

Hypothermia is one of the principal causes of perinatal mortality in water buffaloes and can range from 3% to 17.9%. In ruminants, factors affecting hypothermia in newborns may be of intrinsic (e.g., level of neurodevelopment, birth weight, vitality score, amount of brown fat, skin features) or extrinsic origin (e.g., maternal care, environmental c...

Human-animal relationships for livestock refer to the interaction between stockpeople and animals during different stages of the productive cycle. For dairy buffaloes, the interaction during milking requires proper tactile stimulation to promote oxytocin release and prevent stressful handling that might reduce milk ejection. For buffaloes used for...

Water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) production in Mexico has generated particular interest in understanding the bases of the development of this species. As a result, alliances have emerged between scientific, governmental, industrial, and productive sectors and other organisms involved with this species nationally and internationally. We must recogniz...

Evaluating the welfare of buffaloes during transport is key to obtaining and commercializing high-quality meat products; however, effective assessments require recognizing several stressors that activate physiological mechanisms that can have repercussions on the health and productive performance of species. The aim of this study was to evaluate th...

During the 1st days of life, water buffalo calves, especially those with low birth weight, are susceptible to hypothermic mortality due to scarce energy reserves provided by fats. This means that monitoring the thermal state of newborns is essential. The objectives of the present study were to apply infrared thermography (IRT) in 109 buffalo calves...

Demographics, anthropometrics, oral responsiveness to sensory stimuli and psycho-attitudinal traits were collected from a representative Italian population sample (n = 2384; 58% women, age 18–60 years) and considered as possible explanatory variables affecting meat liking. Differences in motives underlying individual variation in liking for meat we...

Maternal behavior, in water buffalo and other ruminants, is a set of patterns of a determined species, including calving, imprinting, and suckling. This behavior is mainly triggered by hormone concentration changes and their interactions with their respective receptors in the brain, particularly oxytocin. These chemical signals also influence mothe...

The present review aims to integrate the anatomical characteristics of the mammary gland and the neurophysiology of milk ejection to understand the milking capacity of the water buffalo. Since one of the main uses of this species is milk production, this article will analyze the controversies on the use of oxytocin as a stimulant during milking as...

Despite its importance little is known about the attitudes of different stakeholder categories towards issues that impact the welfare of sheep. This study determined the relevance attributed by various stakeholders to different sheep welfare indicators and assessed which demographic characteristics can influence their scores. Data were collected th...

Small-medium dairy enterprises may verify the possibility to enhance their margins by shortening the supply chain. We propose a short sequence of marketing actions with the aim to support the inclusion of transformed goods into their productive process. These actions include the assessment of the main factors affecting consumer cheese purchase deci...

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-16-7531-7_5 SPRINGER.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-16-7531-7_7 SPRINGER

In buffaloes and other mammalian farm species, the mother provides food and protection to the young, but she is also the main source of behavioral and social learning for the offspring. It is important that mother and young establish a bond based on a learning mechanism defined as “imprinting” early after parturition during the sensitive period, on...

https://bmeditores.mx/top/aplicaciones-biotecnologicas-en-la-investigacion-del-bufalo/

Accurate and reliable on-farm protocols are essential in sheep welfare evaluation. However, protocols with a high number of measures are demanding in terms of time. The aim of this trial was to use a few already validated, reliable, feasible, rapid and non-invasive animal-based indicators to evaluate and compare welfare on dairy and mixed purpose s...

This chapter introduces the use of temporal dominance of sensations (TDS) methodology in cured meat products. It starts with a brief description of the principles and purposes of various temporary tests, compared with the conventional descriptive analysis (e.g., QDA). Then, the different aspects of TDS methodology (i.e., panel training, fitting num...

During bullfights, bulls undergo physiometabolic responses such as glycolysis, anaerobic reactions, cellular oedema, splenic contraction, and hypovolemic shock. The objective of this review article is to present the current knowledge on the factors that cause stress in fighting bulls during bullfights, including their dying process, by discussing t...

The present study aims to characterize buffalo Stracchino cheese (BS) from a sensory point of view and verify how much consumers like it compared with the standard Stracchino cheese obtained from cow milk (CS). Nine panelists specifically trained to evaluate Stracchino cheese were used to conduct a quantitative descriptive sensory analysis, whereas...

This study discusses scientific findings on the use of draught animals such as equids (i.e., horses, mules, and donkeys) and bovids (i.e., cattle and water buffaloes) in rural labours. Relevant peer-reviewed literature published between 1980 and 2021 was retrieved from CAB Abstracts, PubMed, ISI Web of Knowledge, and Scopus databases. Although anim...

ABSTRACTObjective: To conduct a bibliographic review of the inventory and distribution of the buffalo herd, leading dairy buffalo breeds, and to map the main research topics for dairy buffaloes, emphasizing feeding methods and their effects on milk and mozzarella cheese quality.Design/Methodology/Approach: Analysis of the main research topics on da...

We pose, based on a neurobiological examination, that events that occur around the time of slaughter have the potential to intensify the pain response, through the processes of sensitisation and enhanced transmission. Sensitisation, or an enhanced response to painful stimuli, is a well-discussed phenomenon in the human medical literature, which can...

We aimed to verify whether a low number of relevant animal-based indicators was able to discriminate 33 semi-intensive (grazing during the day and confinement during the night with access to an outdoor paddock; S-INT) and 8 intensive farms (permanent confinement with access to an outdoor paddock; INT) located in the Mexican semi-desert. In addition...

This is a literature review of the effects of humans ́ relationships with farm animals on animal productivity and welfare, including the following topics: definition of the concept and description of different tests that have been developed to measure human-animal relationship (HAR). Temperament and tameness, which have been considered as farm anim...

The river buffalo is an emerging production species worldwide; indeed, it is overtaking other cattle as a producer of meat and milk in some countries. Though both species belong to the Bovidae family, they show significant anatomical, physiological, and behavioral differences due to their different phylogenetic positions. The river buffalo is a rus...

Placentophagia is a common mammalian behavior, and the first scientific study of the potential effects of human maternal placentophagia on lactation was in 1917. More recently, in the 1970s, human placentophagia was reported in North America with a trend toward increased consumption. There are different hypotheses about the women and nonhuman mamma...

ABSTRACT Purpose: The reproductive problems at parturition in buffaloes are highly important. The literature describes a high incidence of dystocia in buffalo herds as a cause of significant mortality in neonates. Therefore, understanding the physiology, behavior, and signals of calving in buffalo dams during eutocic and dystocic births will allow...

Abstract In this article, we discuss and analyze the results of scientific studies concerning the use of appropriate, inappropriate, and painful slaughtering methods concerning the river buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) and the negative consequences of poor desensitization and/or slaughtering procedures that cause animals pain and suffering. This is impor...