ANIMAL CARE AND SCIENCE ADVANCED CERTIFICATE COURSE
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Study Animal Anatomy and Physiology
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Study different types of animals and the science that underpins managing animals as pets, farm animals or wildlife
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Specialize in the application of animal science to areas that most interest you
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Self paced study at home
This Advanced Certificate consists of eight modules and a Research Project or 100 hour Industry meeting, covering Animal Anatomy and Physiology, Taxonomy (Classification), Behaviour etc. It also incorporates optional study in Environmental Assessment, a marketable skill for people who graduate with a good understanding of animals.
If appropriate Research Project I may be replaced by Industry Meetings (100 hour).
Modules
Note that each module in the Qualification - Advanced Certificate in Applied Animal Science is a short course in its own right, and may be studied separately.
An excellent foundation for building a career with either domestic or wild animals.
Some students use this course to advance a career that has already commenced, while others use it as a starting point for their career.
Opportunities to work with animal science are broad, for example:
- Pet shops, Kennels, Breeders
- Veterinary industries (not just as a vet, but vet supplies, vet assistants, etc)
- Animal protection, wildlife rescue,
- Farming,
- Zoos
- Research
- Media - animal publications, educational film and video, etc
LEARN ABOUT DIGESTION AND ANIMAL FEEDING
The digestive system is basically a long tube extending from the mouth to the anus. Its function is to take in food, grind it, digest it, absorb the nutrients, and eliminate the solid waste products that result from the process. Digestion reduces the nutrients in food to compounds which are simple enough to be absorbed and used by the animal for energy and the building of tissues.
Previously we discussed how livestock are divided into ruminants and non-ruminants. Common ruminants on the farm are cattle and sheep while non-ruminants include pigs and horses. We saw that ruminants eat grass while non-ruminants eat cereals and some grass.
Ruminants' stomachs are designed to deal with large amounts of fibrous material (think how tough old grass and corn/sorghum stalks are). Ruminants have a much larger stomach than non-ruminants. The ruminant stomach is divided into four compartments and food travels slowly through them so that a tough food can be thoroughly digested. By contrast, the non-ruminant has a single or simple stomach (like ours).
We will deal in more detail with simple and ruminant stomachs later, but for now we are going to look at the various parts that make up a digestive system. We will first discuss the digestive system of a non-ruminant so that you can understand the workings of a simple system before moving on to the slightly more complicated ruminant system.
Mouth
The mouth is a cavity that has several functions. Some of the functions of the mouth are to:
- gather food
- grind food into small pieces
- mix food with saliva and mucous to form a slippery ball (called a bolus) that can be easily swallowed by the animal
- The mouth is lined by a mucous membrane.
- Mucous membrane is a layer of specialised epithelial tissue
Tongue
The tongue is a muscular organ that is covered in a mucous membrane. The tongue helps in the grinding of food, the formation of the bolus, and in the swallowing of the bolus. The surface of the tongue contains glands and taste buds which play an important part in the selection of food. The taste buds are sensitive to sweet, bitter, sour and salty tastes. In grazing animals, the tongue is also covered with a layer of small, stalk-like structures called papillae, which help the animal to grip the blades of grass.
Teeth
An animal's teeth play an important part in the biting, tearing, and grinding of food. There are three types of teeth:
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Incisors - the sharp cutting teeth at the front of the mouth;
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Canines - the conical, pointed teeth used for ripping;
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Molars and Premolars - the blunt, irregularly shaped teeth used for grinding food into small pieces.
Farmers and veterinary surgeons look at an animal's teeth to estimate its age. Teeth will be dealt with in more detail in the section on teeth and dentition.
Oesophagus
The oesophagus is a thick, muscular tube connecting the mouth to the stomach. It passes through the diaphragm (the partition between the chest and the abdomen). The tube is lined with mucous membrane and the walls are made up of involuntary muscle.
Once a ball or bolus of food has been forced into the oesophagus from the mouth by the process of swallowing it is automatically pushed down the tube by an action known as peristalsis. This process is also found in other organs of the GIT tract.
The muscle behind the bolus becomes contracted and narrow but the muscle in front of the bolus becomes relaxed and wide. This squeezes the bolus forward into the area of relaxed muscle. This muscle now contracts and propels the bolus further forward. The whole process is like a wave-like motion. Once the bolus is in the oesophagus, it must travel down to the stomach. The animal has no control over this process.
Learning Facilities
ACS follows the old fashioned idea that “the student comes first”. Our staff are told to treat every student as an individual and respond promptly to their enquiries; and the facilities we have developed and continue to develop, are all focused on that goal. Facilities include:
- Offices in two time zones (UK and Australia) –which means an international team of academics are responding to students 5 days a week and 16 hours a day.
- An online student room with unique resources that are only available to students studying our courses, including online library.
- Bookshop offering quality downloadable e books
- A data base of 20 million words of unique information written by our staff over 3 decades that can be drawn upon if needed by academics for use in supporting our students.
- Systems that ensure assignments are tracked, marked and returned to students, fast -commonly within a round 1 week & rarely more than 2 weeks (note: many other colleges take longer).
- The school is active in social networking and encourages students to connect with us and each other.
- No automated handling of student phone enquiries. When you call you get a real person; or leave a message and a real person will call you back within a day, but more commonly within an hour or two.
- No additional charges for extra tutor support over the phone or email.
- Free careers advice for graduates –It is our policy to provide support and advice to our students even after they graduate. If a graduate needs help with getting a CV together, or advice on setting up a business or looking for work; they only need ask.
- The quality of academic staff is higher than many other colleges.
How our Courses Differ
- Courses are continually improved –we invite feedback from all graduates and change courses immediately the need is detected.
- Courses are relevant to the whole world –we try hard to teach make the learning transferable to any region or country because the world is increasingly a global economy
- Courses written by our staff, teach different skills to standard courses; giving a unique mix of skills and knowledge to provide a career advantage. Do you want an accredited certificate and the same skills as 100 other job applicants; or one of our courses with skills that no other applicants have?
- Certificates and diplomas are longer. They teach you more, and our qualifications have built a reputation amongst academics and industry as being a very high standard for this reason.
- We are focused on helping you learn in a way that improves your capacity to understand your discipline, apply knowledge, and continue learning and developing your capabilities beyond your course.
These things cannot be always said of other colleges.
Career Opportunities
Study alone can never guarantee career success; but a good education is an important starting point.
Success in a career depends upon many things. A course like this is an excellent starting point because it provides a foundation for continued learning, and the means of understanding and dealing with issues you encounter in the workplace.
When you have completed an ACS course, you will have not only learnt about the subject, but you will have been prompted to start networking with experts in the discipline and shown how to approach problems that confront you in this field.
This and every other industry in today’s world is developing in unforeseen ways; and while that is unsettling for anyone who wants to be guaranteed a particular job at the end of a particular course; for others, this rapidly changing career environment is offering new and exciting opportunities almost every month.
If you want to do the best that you can in this industry, you need to recognise that the opportunities that confront you at the end of a course, are probably different to anything that has even been thought of when you commence a course.
BOOKS
Visit our online Bookshop for -
- Downloadable ebooks that can be read on ipads, PC’s, Laptops, or readers like a Kindle.
- Titles are written by our principal and staff.
- Anyone can purchase books –ACS students are offered a student discount
We hope we have answered your questions about the course, but if you have any queries, then please ask on -
0800 328 4723 or
