Sir Kenneth Lyon Blaxter FRS PRSE FIBiol (19 June 1919 – 18 April 1991) was an English animal nutritionist.
[1] As a teenager, Blaxter spent his spare time at the Norfolk Agricultural Station, a short distance from the family home.
[3] With the onset of World War II, Blaxter was conscripted and served with the 10th Field Regiment of the Royal Artillery from spring 1940 to the end of 1941, when he returned to NIRD.
[3] Shortly thereafter, he requested to be seconded to the biochemistry department of the Ministry of Agriculture in Weybridge, where he conducted blood analysis and researched lead toxicity in ruminants.
[3] In 1947, after returning to England, Blaxter applied for the headship of the Nutrition Department at the Hannah Dairy Research Institute in Ayr, Scotland[1] and received the position in 1948.
[3] During his tenure at the Hannah Dairy Research Institute, Blaxter wrote over 200 papers,[3] focusing primarily on the issues of energy metabolism and feed usage by ruminants.
[5][6] There, Blaxter and his team of researchers studied topics of importance to the Scottish farmer,[3] including deer farming, llamas,[7] human nutrition,[8] feed evaluation, environmental stress and animal calorimetry.