Green Farm » feeding

Horse care

dmin — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 23:16:35 +0000

Horse often used as transportation tools, attracting tourism, and being taken its milk and meat, but in some cities or regions, the horse was used to racing. Horse, in Latin called as Equus caballus Equus caballus ferrous, is one of ten modern species of mammal of the genus Equus.

This animal has long been one of the important livestock economically, and has held an important role in transporting people and goods for thousands of years. Horses can be ridden by humans using the saddle and can also be used to draw something, such as wheeled vehicles or plows.

Animals including horses are tame and easy to work with. Horses can feel safe and comfortable with humans. If you already know who the employers are always take care of him, the horse will be loyal to the employer.
Age horse can reach 25 years. Ordinary mare bred at age two years. After passing through the reproductive period, the horse will contain over six months.

Domesticated horses of many kinds, among other Arab Horse, Sumbawa Horse, Australian Horse, UK Horse, and Mustang Horse from North America. The types of this horse is the excellent kind of high value on the market. An Australia horse alone could be worth $ 25 million.
This type of horse is usually hardy, brave, beautiful skin color, and usually functioned to satisfy the human, as horse racing, horse circus, acrobatics and horse decorative horse. While the types of horses loads only, it costs no less than Rp 10 million per head, for horses aged 1 to 1.5 years.

Breeding horses is such as raising cows or goats or chicken, every time the disease can be dangerous and even deadly threat. Some diseases that need to watch out for is abdominal bloating, diarrhea, flu or colds, even though injured.
One that usually happens is flatulence. Symptoms, if the horse had flatulence, he likes rolling around on the ground such as upset stomach. This is caused by the feeding of forage that is still fresh, as fresh forage is still a lot of gas content as a trigger flatulence. Or it could also be caused by other causes, such as bathing the cattle come home after work. This will result in animals experiencing colds.

If a horse suffering from abdominal bloating , there are several things you can do. Among the horse took a walk, then gradually invited to run away until the horse peed or remove the dirt. Foods that are provided in the form of green feed should have withered before. Of grated papaya fruit drinks combined with the salt and cooking oil to taste.

The common equipment you should have is an English bridle, it help you control your horse especially if you’re going to use it for racing.

MILK AND CHEESE

dmin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:23:23 +0000

HOW NOW, HAPPY COW?
Grass Fed Dairy — Milk and Cheese from Grass Fed Cows
On a fairly regular basis, Grinning Planet throws cow pies at “industrial agriculture”—those massive, corporate farming operations—while singing the praises of small farms and sustainable, non-chemical agriculture. It all sounds good: who doesn’t prefer the idea of varied, natural, lush fields to endless miles of genetically engineered corn stalks, and who can’t see that happy barnyard animals are better off than sad creatures trapped in cages, pens, and feed lots.
But deep down, we all must wonder at times whether industrial agriculture is just a natural evolution of farming, and whether without it our farmers would be unable to keep the abundant supply of food coming our way.Not only does the following article answer those questions with a resounding “no,” it’s also a great success story in a corporate-dominated farming world that is increasingly short on happy endings. It comes to us from the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, which has generously granted reprint rights.
~ ~ ~
Small Dairy Farms Get Greenbacks From Grazing
by Erin Toner, Great Lakes Radio Consortium
In the retail world, big-box stores have made it tough for small companies to stay in business. That’s also true for agriculture, where the big guys are massive feeding operations that house thousands of cows. Surviving as a small farmer in that world often takes a new way of doing business. Here’s the story of one dairy-farming family that’s found a way to stay in farming, and make a pretty good living….
DOWN ON THE DAIRY FARM
It’s one of those hazy and muggy summer mornings, where the air’s thick enough to soak up the smell of manure and dewy grass. Nearby, cows are swatting flies with their tails, eating grass and relaxing in lush, green pastures. These days it’s a lifestyle most dairy cows never get to experience. Most are confined in big buildings with hundreds or thousands of other milk-making machines (cows).
Howard and Mary Jo Straub didn’t like where dairy farming was going. So about ten years ago, they switched from a farm that warehoused dairy cattle indoors, to something called seasonal rotational grazing. Mary Jo explains how it works.
“The cows get a new paddock or area, and our areas are about five acres, and each day they would get a new five acres of grass to eat. We have 24 paddocks, so every 24 days, they would be back into the same five acres.”
And in those 24 days, rainfall and the cows’ own manure has helped the grass grow back in that first paddock, and then the second, and so on. This is very low-maintenance farming, and low-cost farming.
The Straubs don’t have to buy tons of grain to feed their cows. And they’re not applying pesticides or fertilizer to their pastures as they would on a corn field. They don’t have tons of manure to dispose of, they don’t have loans out on grain-harvesting machinery, and they don’t have to pay lots of employees to feed and manage their animals.
Howard Straub says farming is a lot easier than it used to be, and a lot more lucrative.
“We used to get up and milk, we did a three-time-a-day milking before. We mixed up five loads of feed for different groups of cows. Now we just milk the cows twice a day and when we’re done milking we open the gate and let them out to go eat.”
BUT IS GRASS FED DAIRY PROFITABLE?
Since their costs are so low, the Straubs make between 800 and 1,000 dollars profit on each of their 84 cows. Before, they made around 150 dollars profit per cow.
Howard Straub says grazing has made cattle the chief asset on his farm, instead of a bunch of machines. His cows are healthier because they’re eating grass, like they were meant to do. And because they get lots of exercise, the cattle live longer, produce more milk, and have more calves.
Even though the idea with grazing is that there are sprawling pastures for the cows, it doesn’t require any more land than confined feeding farms. That’s because you have to consider all the land that supports a herd of cattle, says Tom Kriegl, who studies dairy farming at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“You can have a diary operation where the only land that you own is the land that the building sits on that you house cows in, and you might buy all of your feed for those cows and you would not own the land that the feed is grown on. But you actually need that additional land that the feed is grown on even if you don’t own it.”
ROTATIONAL GRAZING AND DAIRY FARMING’S FUTURE
Howard and Mary Jo Straub say they encourage all the young farmers they meet to make the switch to rotational grazing. And it is catching on. The Great Lakes Grazing Network estimates that almost half of all new small and mid-size dairies in the region are using rotational grazing.
Kevin Ogles is a grazing specialist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service. He says grazing is probably the future for all smaller dairy farms. But he says grazing is complicated, with benefits that don’t come immediately.
“The concept is simple. Mastering it—that takes a while. So, once people make the transition after doing it for a few years, that’s when you hear them talk about the economic gain. The quality of life has improved.”At this point, you could call the Straub family master grazers. Since they started ten years ago, Howard and Mary Jo have managed to pay off a 250,000 dollar mortgage. Today, they’re almost debt-free, and they’re able to stop farming for two months in the winter, when they head down to Florida, as Howard says, to take time for the fun things in life. He says that would never have been possible before.
© 2004 Great Lakes Radio Consortium
[Story originally aired on GLRC August 2, 2004]
Ah, that’s a great story.
So, while you contemplate that hot young star sporting the milk moustache, you might also consider buying milk that comes from a family farming operation. It takes a little time examining the labels—after all, they all try to SOUND like they’re old-timey dairy operations. Look for “pasture fed” or “grass fed” on the label. Not even the “organic” label is a guarantee that the milk came from happy cows munching on green grass, though organic is still a good alternate choice if you can’t find milk from grass-fed cows. Sometimes you can even find a brand of milk that is both organic AND grass-fed. Yumm! Moooooo. Yumm! Moooooo…
Publish date: 14-SEP-2004

DAIRY FARMS

dmin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:21:08 +0000

Dairy farms are farms where cows are raised to make milk and milk products like cheese, ice cream, butter and whipping cream. We went to a local dairy farm to see what it was like—up close. It wasn’t what we expected. The farm that we visited had registered Holstein cows, known for high amounts of milk production. Our visit was during a very cold day in January, when farmers sit inside and relax. Right?

Wrong! When we got there, Mr. Makarevich told us that their typical day begins at 4 a.m. and ends at 6:30 p.m. During the whole tour, it was obvious that there was a lot of work involved during all times of the year. Even though it was winter, their day included: Dubai Escorts

· Starting work at 4 – 4:30 a.m. [7 days a week]. It’s even DARK then!
· Cleaning and sanitizing [getting rid of germs] of the hoses, connections, and pipes that the milk flows through. [Picture on left.]
· Feeding the cows.
· Milking the cows. [Picture to the right.] Once the machines are turned on, the milk goes through tubes until it reaches a big milk jar. It is checked to be sure the milk is good and then it goes into the bulk tank where it waits for the milk truck to come and haul it away. The milk truck will take the milk to a dairy, where it will be pasteurized and homogenized for health safety.

The big bottle is checked all the time to make sure that the milk doesn’t have anything bad in it. It goes into a big tank [dark picture] where a tube of milk is taken out by the milk hauler so that they can test it when they get to the dairy.>

The farmer’s day also included:
· Taking the cows out to the exercise yard in warmer weather and then cleaning their stalls. In colder months, the cows stay in and they have to clean the stalls around the cows.
· Taking care of the animals: checking bruises, wounds, hooves–just seeing that the cow is healthy.
· Feeding and taking care of the young calves. [Bottle feeding for the new ones, a bucket of milk for the older ones.]
· Taking care of the crops when the weather is warmer. [Sowing, growing, harvesting]. Checking out the feed that is stored in silos and grain bins; doing maintenance on equipment. To lower food costs, the dairy farmer grows part of the food for the cows.
· Sanitizing the hoses, connections, and pipes again.
· Milking the cows again around 4:00 p.m.
· Checking milk to be sure that the butterfat content is right and that there isn’t anything wrong with the milk so that the hauler can come to get it.
· Feeding cows.

The farm has 210 cows and 3 bulls. The main home farm is 180 acres but they actually farm 700 acres when you count the outlying fields.
As you can see, the picture that we had of farmers taking it easy in the winter, was definitely not true. Even though the job is seven, long days a week, Mr. Makarevich seemed to be…. loving it. When we told him that, he said, “You have to love it, to do it.”

Cattle Industry History

dmin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:16:04 +0000

Cattle Industry History
The following excerpts on the history of the cattle industry were pulled from the book ” Building the Beef Industry” written by Charles E. Ball. The book was commissioned to commemerate the Centennial Anniversary of the national association.

A New Industry is Born
On his second voyage to the New World in 1493, Columbus introduced cattle to the Western Hemisphere. After a two-month, 3400-mile voyage, he set anchor at Hispaniola and unloaded his cattle. There the cattle thrived. In 1519, Hernando Cortez took offspring of these cattle to Mexico to set up ranches. Often the cattle roamed wild and later came to the United States by way of Texas and California.
Early American cattle originated in Europe but came to the Americas by many routes: Texas, Florida, California, Virginia and New England. By the time cattle reached Texas and California from Mexico in the 1500s, a cattle industry was emerging in Florida. Weighing 600 to 800 pounds these cattle known as woods cattle, Florida Crackers or Florida Scrubs, flourished and are still around today.
In 1607, cattle arrived at Jamestown, but none survived. More came in 1611, at which time Governor Thomas Dale issued a proclamation: “No man shall dare kill any bull, cow, calf… whether his own or appertaining to another man.” Thanks to this conservation and further imports, cattle became established in Virginia: an estimated 500 head by 1620 and 30,000 by 1639.
At the same time, animals from England northern Europe began arriving in New England and appeared in New York in 1625. On Manhattan Island, a wall was built between the Dutch commune and their outlying farms to protect against wild animals and Indians. This is the wall for which today’s Wall Street is named.
Expanding Horizons
By the 1890s there was a new range. Great herds of buffalo were gone; Indians were relegated to reservations; barbed wire had carved out farms; and a growing network of rails replaced trail drives. Cattle were now business owned by small as well as large producers. A new century was approaching and the world would change dramatically for the cattlemen.
The cattle industry of 1898 was not only regional, focused almost entirely in the West, but also differed substantially from today’s industry especially in how cattle were readied for and delivered to market.
The industry was organized to produce steers four or five years old which were shipped by train from local loading stations along the ever-growing network of rail lines to central markets as grass fat steers from July to November.
Stockyards provided the accumulation points for cattle coming in on the rail cars. Cattle were not fed as in today’s definitions, but rather sorted and distributed out to packers. There were no feeder or stocker cattle, and heifers were never slaughtered. What feeding there was in the Corn Belt was because midwestern farmers kept cattle to use up excess corn. But this was usually a sideline to their corn and hog economy.
Packers, too, had to be concentrated at the rail centers. They killed all kinds of livestock. Their customers were small butcher shops, which needed an assortment of product. The refrigerator cars were loaded with beef quarters hanging from the ceiling. The floor of the car had boxes of ham, bacon and lamb carcasses wrapped in cheese cloth and veal calf carcasses with the hide still on. Freight rates seemed high, but it was a one-way haul to the eastern markets. There was no back haul; stock cars had to go west empty.
Through out the history of the industry cattlemen have worried about the size and ethics of railroad, packers and eventually about buyers, feeders and any other group who seems to be operating outside of their control. At that time it was difficult for a rancher to realize that once the animal was slaughtered it became a very perishable product. It had to be moved into consumption no matter what the conditions, or lost entirely.

Cattle Farming – A Basic Guide

dmin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:15:10 +0000

Cattle Farming – A Basic Guide
by cattlefarmer on August 30, 2009

Cattle farming is potentially appealing to people who have the necessary land and resources to make it pay. Whether you’re planning on setting up an operation for organic cattle farming, dairy cattle farming or beef cattle farming, the industry of cattle farming is becoming progressively fashionable and lucrative. Cattle can be raised on land which has few other uses, such as areas of land which are unsuitable for any other crop except grass. There are a number of elements to look at and these include calving, inoculation and breeding. For many people cattle farming is an activity which requires less labor input than most farming activities and its is important to look at your specific objectives when setting out along the path of farming cattle, since there are a number of different ways of farming cattle for net income.
For example you could keep a low number of high quality cows and specialize in raising calves from this basic stock. Plainly such an endeavor also requires the services of a good herd bull unless you plan to utilize artificial insemination.
Another potential method of earning good money from cattle farming is to purchase good quality new born calves and then feed them on until they reach over 400 pounds in weight. This type of activity in general takes more labor to make it a winner but the pecuniary rewards can be high. Alternatively the feeding can continue until the calves weigh considerably more and therefore make them more attractive to the beef wholesalers or even to consumers directly.
The purchase of acceptable herd stock is of supreme importance and generally the size and quality of animal is more significant than the actual breed of cattle used. Cattle with abnormal fat are best avoided since they are likely to gain weight slowly, particularly in the first couple of months. Check prospective purchasers cautiously, good cattle should be alert, bright eyed and move around normally. Exceptions to this should be regarded with a degree of mistrust. Similarly, and much like humans, small framed cattle will generally end up as relatively light in weight and those with heavier frames will tend towards the heavier weights. It’s usually best to purchase cattle that are regular in frame since widely diverse frame sizes tend to need different feeding programs, which in turn requires more work.
Many cattle farmers have now seen the rewards of selling directly to consumers but if you plan to do this then it is important to consider having a sturdy business plan with specific aims in mind. Wherever practicable have a specific location for selling since it is generally easier and cheaper to transport live animals for a relatively short distance than a packaged and refrigerated product. As with most endeavors, your merchandise should be well branded and your facilities clean and in good repair.