Coffee in the Barn
From boardroom meetings to bedtime stories, Coffee in the Barn explores the delicate dance of balancing the demands of our professional lives with the joys and responsibilities of being moms. Join us each week as we discuss the latest trends in agri-business, share insightful interviews with industry experts, and sprinkle in some heartfelt anecdotes about the humorous and heartwarming moments that come with being a working mom in the agricultural world.
Join our growing network of like-minded women in agri-business who understand the unique challenges we face and celebrate the triumphs that come with raising the next generation. As advocates for agriculture, we aim to bridge the gap between the farm and your table, educating those unfamiliar with the industry and fostering a greater appreciation for the hands that feed us.
Coffee in the Barn
I’m Not Just an Animal Nutritionist: What Is Animal Nutrition, Really?
In the premiere episode of Coffee in the Barn, Dr. Casey Bradley answers a deceptively simple question: What is animal nutrition?
But this conversation goes far beyond feed and formulas. In this opening installment of our new series “I’m Not Just an Animal Nutritionist,” Casey shares how she entered the field, what animal nutrition truly encompasses, and why it plays a foundational role in animal health, sustainability, and food systems around the world.
Alongside Alex—our AI co-learner and curious mentee—Dr. Bradley walks us through:
- The difference between human and animal nutrition
- Why 70% of production costs hinge on nutrition
- What can go wrong with deficiencies or toxicities
- The core nutrients animals need (and how they get them)
- The diverse career paths in animal nutrition
- And what most people don’t realize about this vital science
Whether you’re a student, producer, pet brand, or fellow nutritionist—this episode will challenge the way you think about animal feed and open your eyes to the science, strategy, and heart behind it all.
☕ Pull up a seat, pour your coffee, and step into the barn.
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@cofeeinthebarn
0:00:00
(Alex - Our AI Learner)
Welcome to Coffee in the Barn, the podcast where science meets story and wisdom is shared over a virtual cup of coffee. I'm Alex, your AI co-learner for this series. And today you're joining me for the very first episode of our brand new series. I'm not just an animal nutritionist. Each week I'll be sitting down with Dr. Casey Bradley, internationally known animal nutritionist
0:00:22
(Alex - Our AI Learner)
mentor and founder of Animistic, as we explore what it really means to work in animal health and nutrition today. We'll go far beyond feed formulas and nutrient charts. You'll hear personal stories, real life challenges, and honest conversations about purpose, faith, science, and everything in between.
0:00:39
(Alex - Our AI Learner)
Today, we start at the beginning with a deceptively simple question. What is animal nutrition? And why would someone dedicate their life to it? So grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and get ready for a thoughtful, grounded conversation
0:00:50
(Alex - Our AI Learner)
that just might surprise you. Dr. Bradley, let's start simple. What exactly is animal nutrition? Is it just about feeding animals?
0:00:59
(Casey's AI Voice)
Animal nutrition is the science of how animals convert feed into essential nutrients. But it's actually a lot more than just what we feed them. It's about formulation creating the right balance. It's about digestibility, absorption, and how those nutrients are used inside the animal's body. We're looking at nutrient requirements, evaluating feed ingredients,
0:01:22
(Casey's AI Voice)
understanding behavior, and measuring performance outcomes. Let me give you a simple example. A pig will eat corn. But feeding just corn isn't a balanced diet. You'll get very different results if you feed corn alone versus a complete, well-formulated ration.
0:01:41
(Casey's AI Voice)
Animal nutrition is also grounded in a lot of science. I had to study physiology, immunology, biochemistry, statistics, even regression modeling. It's not guesswork. It's research-based. And each species is different. For pigs, we're optimizing for lean growth and meat quality. For dogs, we're thinking about vibrancy, weight maintenance, longevity, and yes, even poop quality. We call them the poop watchers because how that stool looks.
0:02:10
(Casey's AI Voice)
That's a reflection of nutrition too. There's a lot more going on in animal nutrition than most people think.
0:02:16
(Alex - Our AI Learner)
That's such a broad and fascinating field. So why did you become an animal nutritionist?
0:02:22
(Casey's AI Voice)
I actually thought I was going to be a veterinarian when I started college. That felt like the only way to work with animals. But when I got to Michigan State, I had the chance to work at the Swine Research Center. That experience changed everything. I met some amazing mentors, Al Snedegar and Dr. Gretchen Hill, and got hands-on pigs research and real world
0:02:46
(Casey's AI Voice)
farming. That's where it clicked for me. I didn't have to be a vet to work with animals. I could study pigs specifically and help them through nutrition. Ironically, I thought I'd only ever work with pigs. But today I work with poultry, geckos, rabbits, even snakes. I love the diversity. And here's something else, pigs are actually a great model for human health. My training even lets me play in the human nutrition space.
0:03:15
(Casey's AI Voice)
Though, I'll admit most people want to lose weight. I usually work with animals where we're trying to gain weight. I don't just call myself an animal nutritionist, I'm an animal scientist. Because this field brings together multiple disciplines to support animal health, well-being, and performance.
0:03:34
(Alex - Our AI Learner)
You know, what strikes me is just how intentional everything is in animal nutrition from performance to poop. That makes me wonder, how is animal nutrition different from human nutrition? Is it just about species, or is there more to it?
0:03:46
(Casey's AI Voice)
To be honest, I think there are more similarities than differences. But the way we approach them, that's where things diverge. Humans eat for enjoyment, for pleasure, culture, and emotion. Animals eat for survival and productivity. From an evolutionary view, the animal's goal is survival and reproduction. If nutrients are scarce, reproduction slows or stops.
0:04:09
(Casey's AI Voice)
If nutrients are plentiful, it thrives. Now compare that to humans, we're often overfed, yet we're seeing more issues with infertility. The relationship is more complex. In animal nutrition, especially in production systems, we formulate diets based on specific goals, cost efficiency, growth, reproduction, or product output. If we're feeding a chicken for eggs, we're measuring how many eggs per hen per year.
0:04:37
(Casey's AI Voice)
For milk, we might change the diet depending on whether we're making fluid milk, cheese, or butter. And here's a key point, animals can't tell us how they feel. So we rely on performance indicators, weight gain, feed efficiency, hair coat, skin condition, even behavior. And ethically there's a responsibility here. Humans can choose what they eat. Eight, animals can't. So we have to work within regulatory and ethical frameworks
0:05:07
(Casey's AI Voice)
to not only support animal performance, but also protect human food safety. So no, animal nutrition isn't just what's for dinner tonight it's science, responsibility and purpose-driven decision-making.
0:05:22
(Alex - Our AI Learner)
So far we've talked about what animal nutrition is and how it compares to human nutrition, but here's what I'm wondering, why does nutrition matter so much in production systems? Isn't it just one piece of the puzzle?
0:05:33
(Casey's AI Voice)
That's a fair question, Alex. The simple answer? Nutrition makes up about 70% of the total cost of animal production. So yeah, it's a big deal. But there's a quote I always come back to something my friend Dan Ross used to say. Dan was a salesman at Purina and a good
0:05:50
(Casey's AI Voice)
friend of mine. He'd explain animal production like a three-legged stool. One leg is nutrition, one leg is health, one leg is management, and if any of those legs are off, the stool collapses and you're flat on your back looking like an idiot. That's how critical nutrition is to the whole system. Let me give you a few examples. If we overfeed energy, sure the pig or cow might love it, but too much fat makes it harder for them to walk.
0:06:20
(Casey's AI Voice)
With broilers, growing them too fast can lead to lameness issues. Genetic selection for growth in poultry gave us amazing performance, but also led to things like woody breast syndrome in chickens. And guess what? For the past decade, a huge amount of research has been focused on how to use nutrition to fix that to solve a genetic issue without sacrificing performance or product quality.
0:06:41
(Speaker 4)
Wow.
0:06:42
(Alex - Our AI Learner)
So nutrition isn't just about cost, it's about welfare too.
0:06:45
(Casey's AI Voice)
Absolutely. Hungry animals are stressed animals. And if we're talking about pigs, hungry pigs destroy things. Trust me, you don't want to deal with a hangry pig. And honestly, you don't want to be around me when I'm hangry either.
0:07:03
(Casey's AI Voice)
Good nutrition supports animal welfare, plain and simple. But one of the things that really drew me to nutrition beyond cost, beyond performance, was the environmental impact. As an undergrad at Michigan State, I took one of the very first nutrient management planning courses. And that's where it clicked. While we feed an animal affects the manure it produces. That manure affects the soil which affects the plants.
0:07:29
(Casey's AI Voice)
It's all connected. That's why tools like enzymes matter so much they reduce waste, improve digestibility, and help us feed the planet responsibly. And then there's the food safety angle. Years ago, we used to feed literal garbage to pigs. But that's mostly banned now because of disease risks.
0:07:49
(Casey's AI Voice)
If we feed pigs something contaminated with E. coli or salmonella, it can enter the human food chain.
0:07:55
(Speaker 3)
That's a big deal.
0:07:56
(Alex - Our AI Learner)
So nutrition really is a foundation, not just for animals, but for the whole system.
0:08:01
(Casey's AI Voice)
Exactly. It's that foundational leg of the stool. And today, we can reinforce that leg with brackets, data analytics, AI research, communication, you name it. Nutrition isn't just a cost line. It's a core strategy for success in animal agriculture.
0:08:18
(Alex - Our AI Learner)
OK, I've got the big picture view now, but let's get into the nuts and bolts. What are the main nutrients animals need, and how do they actually get them?
0:08:26
(Casey's AI Voice)
Great question, Alex. And here's how I always like to start. Water is the most important nutrient period. All living things need water before they need food. If you're not prioritizing water quality and access, nothing else matters.
0:08:42
(Casey's AI Voice)
Now, when we talk about macronutrients, animals need energy usually from carbohydrates or fats, protein which provides amino acids, the building blocks for tissue and muscle. Then we get into micronutrients. These include vitamins like A, D, E, and the B-complex group, and minerals such as calcium, phosphorus, zinc, copper, manganese, cobalt especially for cattle, iodine, and sulfur. Not all feeds naturally provide the right amounts of these, so that's where balancing a diet becomes
0:09:19
(Casey's AI Voice)
critical. For example, corn and soybean meal may lack certain trace minerals. That's when we supplement. Animals get their nutrients from ingredients like corn, soy, canola, rapeseed, oats, various fat sources, including used cooking oil from restaurants, and specially formulated premixes. But here's the key. It's not just about what's in the feed.
0:09:43
(Casey's AI Voice)
It's about what the animal can actually use.
0:09:45
(Alex - Our AI Learner)
Ah, so it's not just about adding nutrients, it's about making them available.
0:09:49
(Casey's AI Voice)
Exactly, that's what we call bioavailability, how well the animal can digest, absorb, and use the nutrients. Sometimes we use feed additives, not nutrients themselves, but tools like enzymes or processing techniques that enhance availability.
0:10:06
(Casey's AI Voice)
The goal is simple. More nutrients used by the animal equal less waste in the manure. That means better growth, better performance, and better sustainability.
0:10:16
(Alex - Our AI Learner)
Okay, so what if we mess it up? What actually happens when an animal doesn't get the right nutrition? Are we talking poor performance or something more serious?
0:10:24
(Casey's AI Voice)
Well, Alex, there are some pretty intense photos out there, especially in older reference books that show what happens when nutrition goes really wrong. A lot of those images come from research on vitamin and mineral deficiencies. And while you won't see those severe cases very often today, thanks to fortified feeds, they're still important to understand. Let me give you a few examples. In pigs, a vitamin D deficiency can lead to a condition called humpback. In lambs and other young animals, rickets
0:10:56
(Casey's AI Voice)
shows up when bones don't form properly. Splay legs, mulberry heart disease, and other skeletal or muscular issues can result from deficiencies in vitamin E, vitamin A, or manganese. So yes, if nutrition is off you can often see it visually. Poor body condition, dull coat quality, lethargy, or changes in eyes and behavior. But it's not just about deficiencies. Toxicities
0:11:21
(Alex - Our AI Learner)
can be a problem too. Weight so too much of a nutrient can be just as bad.
0:11:25
(Casey's AI Voice)
Let me give you a real world example from my own experience. When I was running a multi-species feed mill, I had to be extremely careful with copper levels. In pig diets, we often use high levels of copper to support growth. But when it came time to manufacture sheep feed, I had to run a special flushing sequence through the system. Why? Because copper is toxic to sheep. Sheep don't have gallbladders, so they can't
0:11:51
(Casey's AI Voice)
excrete excess copper from the liver. A buildup can be fatal. So both too little and too much can cause serious harm and that's where good formulation and
0:12:01
(Alex - Our AI Learner)
awareness come in. That makes a lot of sense. But what if there aren't any obvious signs?
0:12:07
(Casey's AI Voice)
Sometimes the signs are subtle slow growth, weak immune response, poor reproductive performance, even early mortality. That's why, as a nutritionist, I always say, be proactive. Prevention is cheaper than fixing problems later. And if we're working with these cost formulations, we need to be extra vigilant. The goal is to meet not just minimums, but the specific needs of that species in that environment, at that life stage.
0:12:36
(Alex - Our AI Learner)
Good nutrition is about doing it right up front because the cost of getting it wrong can be much higher. Okay, so animals need water, energy, protein, vitamins, minerals, got it. But that raises a big question. How do you figure out exactly how much of each nutrient an animal needs? It seems like there's a lot to balance.
0:12:57
(Casey's AI Voice)
There is, Alex, but we have some pretty solid systems in place. First, you need to understand that nutrition is always species-specific. We rely on resources like the NRC National Research Council, the INRA tables in Europe, and the Brazilian Nutrient Tables, among others. These resources are built from decades of peer-reviewed research, compiled to give us accurate nutrient recommendations for different species.
0:13:24
(Casey's AI Voice)
But that's just the foundation. We also factor in age, weight, life stage like lactation, growth, gestation, environmental conditions.
0:13:35
(Alex - Our AI Learner)
Environmental conditions? Like weather?
0:13:38
(Casey's AI Voice)
Absolutely. When I used to raise pigs outdoors, we had to feed extra energy during winter. Why? Because those pigs needed more calories to stay warm. Same goes for cattle. In contrast, during the summer, animals often eat less because of heat stress, so we may need to increase energy or protein density in the diet to maintain growth.
0:13:59
(Alex - Our AI Learner)
So it's not just one size fits all.
0:14:01
(Casey's AI Voice)
Not at all. We also use feed formulation software, lab analysis of feed ingredients, digestibility and metabolism trials, and most importantly real-world data. A lot of what we know today started back in the 1940s and 50s, especially for vitamins and minerals. But the work continues. In fact, most integrated swine and poultry producers still run amino acid trials every few years.
0:14:29
(Casey's AI Voice)
They're testing how their animals respond to different formulations, even genetic lines matter. For example, a raws broiler and a cob broiler, two types of chickens, have different nutrient requirements based on how they grow and metabolize feed. So it's not guesswork. It's data, research, and continuous testing of our hypotheses to make sure we're optimizing every aspect of
0:14:54
(Alex - Our AI Learner)
nutrition. Okay, this is the one I've really been looking forward to asking. What does a career in animal nutrition actually look like? Is it all research
0:15:02
(Casey's AI Voice)
and lab coats or are there other paths out there? Oh Alex, I'm so glad you asked this one. This question was actually the spark behind the original Coffee and Careers in Animal Science series because like I shared earlier, I once thought the only career option for someone who loved animals was to become a veterinarian. But that's so far from the truth. Let's just stick to animal nutrition for now even though animal science as a whole has endless possibilities. So it's not just research or feed mills. Not even close. Here are just a few examples of where a career in animal
0:15:37
(Casey's AI Voice)
nutrition can take you. Academia, professorships, teaching or peer research, corporate research, working for feed or ingredient companies, feed mills, formulation, quality control operations, large farms acting as in-house nutritionists or technical leads. Consulting, like what I do working independently or with multiple clients. Sales, especially technical sales where you help clients understand products, regulatory roles, state or federal agencies, compliance or policy work, non-profits and commodity groups like AFIA or National Pork Board, even lobbying or advocacy work,
0:16:20
(Casey's AI Voice)
if that's your thing. And let me say this clearly, just because you start somewhere doesn't mean you have to stay there. Can you share a bit about your own path? Absolutely. I started in swine production working in the barns, but I didn't have the answers I needed to solve the problems I was seeing so I went back to graduate school. I became a research farm manager at the University still working with pigs, still managing people. Then I moved to Kambach feeds as
0:16:49
(Casey's AI Voice)
a swine nutritionist. I worked in regulatory compliance, tackled feedmill quality issues, and got out into the field for technical support. Later I joined AB Vista and that's when my world expanded. I traveled internationally, collaborated with people from all over and realized just how much there was to learn. Eventually I pivoted into research and innovation which I loved in theory. I had all these ideas in my head and wanted to bring them to life but corporate
0:17:22
(Casey's AI Voice)
decision-making and shareholder agendas made that difficult. So I started my own company. Now I get to work with everyone from geckos to pigs, and on everything from R&D commercialization to private label product development. And honestly, it's a blast.
0:17:43
(Alex - Our AI Learner)
Geckos to pigs, now that's a range.
0:17:45
(Casey's AI Voice)
It really is. And here's what I want everyone to remember. Be collaborative. Whether you're working with veterinarians, producers, data scientists, feed mill staff, or even marketing teams, it takes all of us.
0:17:58
(Casey's AI Voice)
And never forget the end consumer. That might be the human who eats the chicken, pork, or beef you helped raise. Or it might be the pet owner who's trusting your nutrition to keep their companion healthy. You also have to stay within the regulatory and legal boundaries. That's something I learned early on. So yes, the opportunities in animal nutrition are vast. And no matter where you
0:18:22
(Casey's AI Voice)
start, you can keep growing, pivoting, and finding your place in this
0:18:26
(Alex - Our AI Learner)
field. That was a masterclass, Dr. Bradley. We started with what is animal nutrition? And we ended with an honest look at just how deep, complex, and impactful this field really is. It's not just about feeding animals. It's about research, economics, ethics, sustainability, health, and ultimately, about doing right by the animals and people we serve. From poop quality to phosphorus runoff, from pigs to geckos, this conversation reminded me
0:18:50
(Alex - Our AI Learner)
that animal nutrition touches everything. So if you're listening and wondering, can I really build a career in this field? The answer, clearly, is yes, and there's more than one way to do it. Thank you, Dr. Bradley, for opening the barn doors
0:19:03
(Alex - Our AI Learner)
and letting us sit with you today. If you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to subscribe to Coffee in the Barn and share it with someone who needs to hear it, whether they're a student, a mentor, or just curious about what really goes into animal nutrition. We'll be back soon with the next episode, where we'll keep diving deeper into the world We'll be back soon with the next episode, where we'll keep diving deeper into the world
0:19:21
(Alex - Our AI Learner)
of science, animals, and the people behind it all. Until then, I'm Alex, your AI co-learner, and I'll see you next time in the barn.
