Livestock can sometimes be unhealthy on a farm. It’s not always affordable or easy. While it can be tough work, it’s key to raise happy farm animals. And it’s something every livestock farmer needs to eventually become an expert in.
You’re not alone if you’re new to living on a farm with animals.
Every year, first-time farmers get animals and must learn how to care for them.
You may be out of your depth now, but you won’t be there long.
I am writing about this topic because I’m a multi-bestselling entrepreneur, and I love to help people in all types of businesses to succeed.
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Below are some tips for how to raise happier farm animals so you can produce what you want from them for your farm.
Think about how you can most efficiently use your space to farm and raise livestock. Plan how and where you’ll raise your animals. Optimize your farm to get the most out of raising animals. Planning is essential to using farm space correctly.
Farm animals can easily spread disease if their living quarters are not cleaned daily. Housing must be kept clean, including replacing bedding, cleaning after messes, and more. Perform daily spot checks on everything. Ensure your barn is adequately ventilated. Use barn exhaust fans if you need extra control on that front.
Grooming is an overlooked aspect of animal husbandry, yet it’s pivotal to cleanliness and detecting health issues. Grooming varies depending on farm animal needs. Bovines, equines, pigs, goats, and poultry each have unique needs. Farmers must also consider skin type, coat, breed characteristics, animal stress levels, and the environment.
Providing high-quality food is a standard guideline for farm animals. Most farm animals eat grain and protein, so they focus their diets on them. Different approaches to learning feeding—i.e., scheduled feeding, limited feeding, full feeding, free-access feeding, or supplemental feeding—are appropriate for specific situations.
Fresh, clean water is necessary. Natural water sources can dry up, become contaminated, or become unsuitable for livestock. That’s why many farmers prefer using cattle waterers. They can be run year-round to ensure your animals always have access to clean water. That way, they will stay perfectly hydrated no matter the conditions.
When you allow bad habits to persist, controlling your animals becomes more difficult. Please feel free to be aggressive in training them and setting expectations. This will make their lives easier to enjoy, and you won’t have to try as hard later to get your animals to comply with behavioural requests.
Ensure your animals are moving and getting exercise. Exercise and social interaction should be essential elements of their daily lives. Animals should have access to grassy areas or designated exercise grounds, with sufficient movement for play and health maintenance. Exercise and movement help their physical health, foster stronger mental health, and prevent behavioural issues through socialization.
Record your activity every day. Write down details about ongoing care and treatment, vet visits, weight and development, feeding, the date and time of any therapies or treatments, and other observations. Detailed health records allow you to look back and see how well animals are progressing in their development. They also allow you to spot patterns if you notice animals getting sick or experiencing trouble in some form.
When raising farm animals, you want to observe them at least three times a day. This checks for wounds and cuts, assesses injuries and notes unusual behaviour. Signs of illness and examples of unusual behaviour include low food intake, weight loss, decreased activity, difficulty breathing, deep coughing, eye or nasal discharge, bloody diarrhea, or depression.
Consistency is key when caring for farm animals. Try to do chores at the same time—farm animals like routine. Check and top up their fresh water at the same time every day. Replace their feed at a specific time. At a particular time, check their fence or shelter. Ensure everything is working as planned.
Mitigate your losses to predators by employing security strategies, such as fencing, trapping, non-lethal deterrents, using enclosed areas for calving and lambing, rotational grazing, and regular inspection. Invest the time to learn about local predators and talk to local farmers to hear how they keep predators out and away from their livestock.
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