Most Profitable Livestock Farming, Animal Husbandry, Livestock Farm Business Ideas, Farm Animals to Raise
Cow, Sheep, Pig, Goat, Buffalo, Rabbit, Poultry, Dairy Farming, Cattle Rearing, Cattle Breeding Farm, Cattle & Poultry Feed, Fodder
Livestock farming, raising of animals for use or for pleasure. Livestock farming is the rearing of animals for food and for other human uses. The word 'Livestock' applies primarily to cattle or dairy cows, chickens, goats, pigs, horses and sheep. Today, even animals like donkeys, mules, rabbits and insects such as bees are being raised as part of livestock farming.
Present-day livestock farming is very well planned - animals are provided with food and shelter and bred selectively. As regards shelter, animals are usually kept in enclosures. Pigs and poultry are reared intensively in indoor environments. However, indoor animal farming has often been criticized for multiple reasons - on grounds of pollution and for animal welfare reasons. Outdoor farming of livestock stands for rearing animals in bigger enclosures like ranches and fenced pastures.
Livestock farming is a double-benefiting system - it helps the farmers both economically and supplies them with food throughout the year. However, the above benefits do surely rest upon a two faced criterion - the development must proceed scientifically, and protection and care should be first on the farmer's list.
The usefulness of livestock organs in medicines like insulin has been understood only recently. Nevertheless, livestock farms have been benefiting us in many ways for ages - they provide us with eggs, honey, meat, milk, etc. The skins or hides and even hair of these animals have been used to make blankets, clothing, shoes and the like. The hoofs and horns of these farm animals have been used to make common items like buttons and combs.
Ruminant (cud-chewing) animals such as cattle, sheep, and goats convert large quantities of pasture forage, harvested roughage, or by-product feeds, as well as nonprotein nitrogen such as urea, into meat, milk, and wool. Ruminants are therefore extremely important; more than 60 percent of the world’s farmland is in meadows and pasture. Poultry also convert feed efficiently into protein; chickens, especially, are unexcelled in meat and egg production. Milk is one of the most complete and oldest known animal foods.
The livestock sector provides us with meat, dairy and eggs, as well as wool and leather. The sector generates some €9.3 billion per year in the Netherlands. Government, livestock farmers and the processing industry want to make animal husbandry as sustainable and animal-friendly as possible. This is why battery cages have been banned, and pregnant sows must be housed in groups.