* recent developments in nutrition and feeding and especially the more efficient use of low quality feeds

* emphasis on sustainable and integrated systems of production, especially in the low to medium input smallholder mixed systems that predominate over much of the tropics

* due attention to the conservation and rational use of the vast stock of breeds and types of domestic animals that contribute to the world's biological diversity

* a shortened chapter on cattle to eliminate material readily available elsewhere, and improved treatment of many of the chapters on other species; and

* new or greatly revised chapters on the Family Equidae (including horses and mules as well as donkeys), minor species and microlivestock, animal fibres and other products including hides and skins, the sustainable production of forage, and the contribution of animals to farm energy supplies in the form of draught, transport and other power functions

* still the most authoritative and comprehensive book on the development and production of domestic livestock in the Tropics