About the journal
The Indian Journal of Animal Nutrition (IJAN) is a peer-reviewed scientific journal owned by the Animal Nutrition Society of India (ANSI). The journal publishes high-quality original research article, reviews, concepts, short communication, innovative methodologies in all the areas of the animal nutrition such as feed technology, nutrient utilization, microbiology, omics, GHG emissions, feed safety in all the livestock species. The journal serves as a platform for disseminating innovative research that leads to the improvement in production, feed efficiency, product quality while minimizing the environmental implications.
Aims & scope
IJAN welcomes high quality submissions from the researchers, academicians, industries, and policy makers worldwide on the basic, applied and translational aspects of the animal nutrition. The scope of journal is quite diverse and majorly focuses on the
- Feed resources and evaluation
- Non-conventional feed resources
- Feed technology & safety
- Feed additives & functional feed
- Nutrient metabolism & requirements
- Microbiota and host-microbiome interaction
- Artificial intelligence in feeds and feeding
- Precision nutrition
- Nutrition for better production and reproduction
- Maternal and early life nutrition
- Enteric methane emissions and mitigation
- GHG emissions from livestock excreta
- Carbon footprint of livestock production
- Environmental pollutants affecting nutrient utilization and production
In addition, the IJAN also welcomes the article related to the fish and pet nutrition.
Commencement of guidelines
These guidelines for authors will be enforced beginning July 1, 2026, and the editorial team will not accept any submissions that do not adhere to them. The authors are kindly asked to review these guidelines thoroughly and prepare the manuscript in accordance with them.
Original Research Articles
The original research article should not exceed 6000 words and contain a maximum of six tables and four figures. The manuscript should be based on the original research not published anywhere or under consideration. The manuscript submission must be approved by all the authors. Corresponding author of the manuscript should ensure the ethical compliance. Authors are advised to strictly follow the journal formatting requirements including reference style. All the submissions will undergo the plagiarism checking and the similarity index exceeding the acceptable limits will lead to the rejection of manuscript.
Manuscripts must be written in clear scientific English. Authors can follow either British or American English consistently throughout the manuscript.
The manuscript should be prepared in Microsoft Word (.docx) format with Times New Roman font (size 12). The manuscript should contain continuous line and page numbers.
The Manuscript shall be prepared under following sections
Title Page: The title page should contain the Full title of the manuscript, running title (≤50 characters), Authors name including first, middle and family name, Affiliations, ORCID IDs (preferably for all the authors or at least for the first and corresponding author, Corresponding author details (Email and Phone number) and Number of tables and figures.
Abstract: Maximum 250 words. The abstract should essentially include objectives of the study, brief methodology, results and conclusions. Authors shall avoid the reference citation and uncommon abbreviations in the abstract section.
Keywords: Provide a list of 5–6 keywords. The keywords should represent theme of the study.
Introduction: Introduction section should appropriately describe the background of work, knowledge gap(s), objectives and hypothesis.
Materials and Methods: The section should be elaborated for replication of the methods and should contain ethical approval for the study in the beginning of the section followed by experimental design, replicates, animal management, feeding schedule, laboratory and analytical procedures, statistical methods and models used along with the software versions. If the manuscript has NGS, proteomics or Metabolomics data, then the raw data should be submitted to public repositories, and the accession or reference numbers shall be given in the end of this section. The formulas should be built using Microsoft Formula Editor only. Symbols should not be represented by alphabets or numbers, use insert symbol function in MS Word for °C (degree Celsius), ´ (multiplication) and µ (micro)
Results: Present the study findings clearly and concisely. Data given in the graphs should not be included in tabular format. However, if such data are unavoidable, may be submitted as supplementary files. Avoid repetition between text and tables. The significant results should be presented with valid statistical analyses and should accompany exact p values.
Discussion: The section should contain the Interpretation of the results in relation to previous studies. The section should also contain the limitation and implication of the study.
Conclusions: Provide concise conclusions and practical significance.
References: the references should be in Vancouver style. References should be consecutively in order of appearance. Include DOI whenever available. Authors are advised to use Mendeley Reference Manager for referencing
Tables: The tables should be prepared in editable format only in MS Word. The tables should have numbers consecutively and referred into the text of the manuscript at appropriate places. The table titles should be descriptive. Abbreviations and symbols used in the tables should be explained in the footnotes.
Figures: The figures should be in TIFF, PNG, JPEG or EPS format. The figures resolutions should be at least 300 dpi photographs and 600 dpi line drawings. All figure legends should be provided separately. Abbreviations and symbols used should be explained in the figure captions. Sizes for the acceptable figures: single and double column to be decided
Scientific units and names: The manuscript should have SI units throughout. The Genus and species names should be italicized. The gene names are italicized and protein names in normal font face.
Ethical requirements and declaration: the studies involving use of animals in the experiment must include compliance to the ethical guidelines and institutional ethics committee approval should be explicitly mentioned in the materials and methods section as well as at the end of the manuscript. Example: “Experimental procedures were approved by the Institutional Animal Ethics Committee (Approval No. XXX/XXXX).”
Data Availability: Authors must provide a Data Availability Statement at the end of the manuscript. Sanger sequencing data requires GenBank Submission and accession number to be mentioned in the manuscript. “NGS data should be available in NCBI SRA and the accession number in the format of SRAXXXXX should be provided in the manuscript as well as in the data availability statement”
Omics and microbiome studies: For genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and microbiome studies, the authors must provide: Raw data repository, Accession numbers, Bioinformatics workflow, Software versions and Database versions. Submission of metadata is strongly encouraged.
AI policy: AI tools may be used for Language editing, Grammar correction and Formatting assistance. AI tools cannot be listed as authors. Authors remain fully responsible for all content. A disclosure statement must be included when AI tools substantially contribute to manuscript preparation.
Authorship: Authors must satisfy all four ICMJE criteria for author contributions. Guest, honorary and ghost authorship are strictly prohibited. The author contributions should be included at the end of the manuscript by using the CRediT taxonomy. Examples include Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Data curation, Formal analysis, Manuscript Writing, Supervision and Funding acquisition.
Funding Statement: All sources of financial support must be disclosed. If the study is supported by external grant, the funding agency with the grant number should be stated.
Conflict of Interest: Authors must disclose all financial and non-financial conflicts. If none exist: “The authors declare no conflict of interest.” Should be stated.
Research Integrity: The journal follows COPE Guidelines, FAIR Data Principles. Misconduct includes Plagiarism, Fabrication, Falsification, Duplicate publication and Image manipulation.
Supplementary Materials: the supplementary files may include Extended datasets, Additional figures, Additional tables, Protocols, Statistical scripts, Bioinformatics workflows etc.
Cover letter: The cover letter should include Importance of the work, Confirmation of originality, Confirmation of author approval, Ethical compliance statement
Revision of the manuscript: The revised submissions must include clean manuscript, marked manuscript and point-by-point response to the reviewers’ comments.
Proofs: Proofs are sent to the corresponding author before publication. Only minor corrections are permitted at proof stage.
Submission Checklist: Before submission, ensure that the
✓ Manuscript follows IJAN format
✓ All authors approve submission
✓ Ethics statement with approval number is included in the text (methodology)
✓ Conflict of interest statement is provided
✓ Funding information is included
✓ Data availability statement is included
✓ Figures meet the resolution requirements
✓ References are complete and as per recommended style
✓ Supplementary files are uploaded
✓ ORCID IDs are provided
✓ AI disclosure statement is included where applicable
✓ Cover letter is included
The above broad guidelines also applied to the Review, Systematic reviews, invited reviews, methods/protocol articles as well as short communications.
Review Articles
The review articles on the topics of contemporary interest may be submitted for consideration. The word limit for review articles is maximum 10,000 words. The review should contain comprehensive and critical analysis.
Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses must follow PRISMA guidelines.
Short Communications
Novel findings of immediate significance and short studies may be submitted as short communication. The organization should be same as the research manuscript. Word limit for the short communication is maximum 3,000 words
Methods and Protocol Articles
New laboratory, field or computational methodologies may be submitted as methods or protocol articles.
Perspectives
Expert opinions on emerging topics limited to 1000-1500 words.
Invited Reviews
By invitation of the Editorial Board.
Publication frequency and articles availability
Upon acceptance, peer-reviewed articles will be published online with a digital object identifier (DOI) number on the journal website (https://epubs.icar.org.in/index.php/IJAN/index) and in physical hard copies for institutional libraries and individual subscribers. The compiled articles are published in hard copy three times annually in April, August, and December. The full issue of the journal is available in the archives (https://epubs.icar.org.in/index.php/IJAN/issue/archive) , while the individual article can be accessed online.
Anonymity during review and name disclosure
IJAN uses a single-anonymized paradigm in which reviewers know the identity of the authors, but the authors do not know about the reviewers until the proofreading stage. When a paper is accepted, the names of the handling editor and reviewers who endorsed it are printed on the published article page. If a reviewer advises the rejection of an article, their name is not revealed to the authors at any stage.
For any further enquiry, may contact Chief Editor
Dr. Pradeep Kumar Malik,, Head, Bioenergetics and Environmental Sciences Division, ICAR-National Institute of Animal Nutrition and Physiology, Bengaluru, India 560 030 Email ID: Chiefeditorijan@gmail.com