Livestock and animal husbandry
Livestock and animal husbandry encompass the management and breeding of domesticated animals for various purposes, including food, fiber, and companionship. Effective animal husbandry requires a deep understanding of the animals' needs, including their nutrition, reproductive cycles, and behavior, as well as the environmental and economic factors affecting their care. Two primary management systems exist: intensive and extensive. Intensive systems involve high levels of control, with animals kept in confined spaces and provided with all necessary resources, often leading to higher productivity but requiring significant capital and expertise. In contrast, extensive systems allow animals to roam and self-manage, relying more on their natural behaviors and requiring larger land areas.
Key factors influencing animal husbandry include biological parameters like nutrient needs and reproductive efficiency, as well as non-biological factors such as climate, land tenure, and available labor. Contemporary issues in the field revolve around the sustainability of animal agriculture, its environmental impact, and the shift towards corporate farming, which raises concerns about monopolistic practices in production. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for anyone interested in the complexities of livestock management and its role in modern agriculture.
Livestock and animal husbandry
Animal husbandry refers to the management of domesticated animals such as beef or dairy cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and chickens: livestock. Such animals constitute a renewable resource, providing humans with food, fiber, fuel, power, implements, and other benefits.
Background
Effective animal husbandry requires an affinity for the animals being managed, skill in handling them, and knowledge of them and their environment. Respect for animals is important to good management, as is skill in handling to minimize injuries and stress to both animal and handler. Knowledge is needed of their nutrition, reproduction, and behavior as well as the physical, biological, cultural, and economic context in which they are managed. While some inputs (such as aberrant and governmental regulations) are beyond the control of the producer, good management will ensure the most efficient productivity from the available inputs.
Intensive and Extensive Management
Intensive and extensive management are the two main options for animal husbandry. Intensive management refers to confinement-type operations that provide animals with shelter, food, and water. It has been called “landless” because it requires very little property. Examples include beef feedlots, concentrate-based dairy farms, and confinement swine or poultry operations. In extensive systems, on the other hand, the animals are provided with an area in which they fend for themselves, finding their own food, water, and shelter. Examples are rangeland beef operations, pasture-based dairying, and free-range poultry farms. In practice, animal husbandry often includes both intensive and extensive management.
In the early twenty-first century, the US beef industry generally involved extensive operations for at least the first year of life and an intensive phase just prior to market; availability and prices of feed grains may determine the extent to which intensive management is practiced. Dairy operations around the world range from intensive to extensive—from no to exclusive pasture, respectively. Seasonal variation of pasture may dictate when it is available and used. Because dairy cows must be milked two or three times a day, dairy operations are never as extensive as some beef operations, where the producer may have contact with the animals no more than once a year.
Intensive animal management generally requires more management expertise, more capital investment, and more energy utilization. Since the animal is totally under control of the producer, all needs of the animal must be provided. The inevitably greater concentration of animals requires closer attention to their housing and health. The larger capital investment is attributable to facilities and equipment. More energy utilization is needed to maintain temperature and ventilation as well as to operate equipment. Intensive management also places greater emphasis on maximizing animal performance. Because more capital and energy are used, effort is made to extend animal performance by genetics, nutrition, and other management tools. Intensive managment also requires more dependence on others for feed. While some intensive livestock producers raise their own feedstuff, many do not. They may depend on crop farmers within the region or half a world away. Contemporary swine operations in Japan and Korea require corn and soybeans from the U.S. Midwest.
Extensive animal management demands more land and more dependence on the animals’ abilities than intensive management. The larger land requirement is a primary feature of this system. The greater dependence on the animals’ abilities follows from less direct provision by the producer for their needs. Survival and growth may depend on their locating food, water, and shelter as well as avoiding danger. Reproduction may be left to natural service, easy birthing, and good mothering. Extensive management involves more tolerance for decreased animal performance. When weather conditions do not provide sufficient food, the animals will have less than maximal growth and fertility. Neonatal losses attributed to weather, predators, or terrain are tolerated. Indeed, human intervention may not be a realistic option when animals are widely dispersed. An important parameter is the “stocking rate,” the number of animals per land area. Too few animals will not fully use the vegetation, as many grasses are most nutritious at an early stage of development and become less nutritious and coarser if not eaten then. Too many animals will overgraze, impairing regrowth of the vegetation. Optimum “stocking rate” corresponds closely to the ecological concept “carrying capacity,” the number of animals that an area can sustain over an extended period of time. Extensive systems can demand substantial management expertise. For instance, pasture-based dairying in New Zealand requires considerable knowledge to optimize pasture growth and utilization.
Biological and Nonbiological Parameters
Any animal management system must take into account numerous biological parameters pertinent to the animal under management. These include nutritional requirements, biological time lag (time from conception to market), reproduction (gestation length and number of newborn, newborn survival), efficiency of feed conversion, nature of weight gain, genetic selection, and susceptibility to disease. Decisions are made about using natural service or artificial insemination. The extent to which agricultural by-products, crop residues, and/or production enhancers are used depends on their efficacy, availability, and price.
Any animal management system also involves a number of nonbiological parameters. The available climate, water supply, and land are physical attributes that bear upon the husbandry options. Two other facets of the land affecting management are its tenure, whether owned, leased, or occupied, and its use, whether restricted or not. Husbandry is also affected by the availability and skill level of labor. Another factor is the infrastructure—the dependability of transportation providing access to markets, postfarm processing, and communication systems. Profitability, the difference between receipts and cost of inputs, as well as any subsidies, determines whether one can engage in any agricultural activity for long. Personal values, including lifestyle and risk management, also impact involvement in animal agriculture. Finally, historical and societal values, particularly those directly touching on the use of animals and natural resources, influence the extent and nature of animal husbandry.
Issues
Three issues of contemporary interest relative to livestock and animal husbandry concern the need for animal agriculture, its sustainability, and its increasing corporate nature. The willingness of people to purchase and consume products of animal origin will always determine the need for animal agriculture. If the price people must pay for such products is too high, demand will decline. As the general affluence of a country increases, the demand for foods of animal origin increases.
The sustainability of contemporary agriculture has been called into question because of its heavy dependence on fossil fuels for energy and its adverse effects on the environment. Properly managed, animals have a role to play in sustainable agriculture. They can help dispose of some agribusiness by-products—crop residues and crops not suitable for human consumption—and generate waste that can be used to fertilize crops.
Animal agriculture is increasingly conducted by corporations rather than by family-owned farms or ranches. Once farming moves away from subsistence farming and generates excess over what the farm family needs, it becomes a business. The pressure for efficiency, as well as for high and consistent product quality, is driving animal agriculture toward increasingly specialized and integrated enterprises. While this tendency appears to be inevitable, serious concerns arise concerning the oligopolies, if not monopolies, that may control the production of animal products and the management of domestic animals, a valued renewable resource.
Bibliography
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Campbell, John R., M. Douglas Kenealy, and Karen L. Campbell. Animal Sciences: The Biology, Care, and Production of Domestic Animals. 4th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2003.
Campbell, Karen L., and John R. Campbell. Companion Animals: Their Biology, Care, Health, and Management. 2d ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009.
Cheeke, Peter R. Contemporary Issues in Animal Agriculture. 2d ed. Danville, Ill.: Interstate, 1999.
Ensminger, M. Eugene. The Stockman’s Handbook. 7th ed. Danville, Ill.: Interstate, 1992.
Field, Thomas G., and Robert E. Taylor. Scientific Farm Animal Production: An Introduction to Animal Science. 9th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2008.
"Livestock Production Processes." Economic Research Services, US Department of Agriculture, 23 Mar. 2023, www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-practices-management/crop-livestock-practices/livestock-production-practices/. Accessed 23 Dec. 2024.