AGRICULTURE O LEVEL(FORM ONE) NOTES – INTRODUCTION TO LIVE STOCK SCIENCE AND PRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION TO LIVESTOCK SCIENCE AND PRODUCTION

THEME 04: INTRODUCTION TO LIVESTOCK SCIENCE AND PRODUCTION

LIVESTOCK: This term represents all domestic animals and birds of economic importance.

• These include cattle, poultry, pigs, sheep, and goats.

LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION: It is the art and science of keeping livestock for various purposes.

CLASSES OF LIVESTOCK KEPT IN TANZANIA AND THEIR USES

1. Cattle: Used for the supply of milk, meat, and skin (hide).
   • Milk cattle are known as dairy cattle.
   • Meat cattle are known as beef cattle.
   • Cattle producing both milk and meat are called dual-purpose cattle.
   • Cattle used as draft animals are called oxen.
2. Poultry: Kept for the supply of eggs and meat.
   • Poultry for eggs are called layers.
   • Poultry for meat are called broilers.
   • Those suitable for both are called dual-purpose poultry.
3. Pigs: Kept for the supply of meat and fat.
4. Sheep: Kept for the supply of wool and meat (mutton).
5. Goats: Specifically kept for meat and milk.

CATEGORIES OF LIVESTOCK

1. Indigenous/local types.
2. Exotic types.

General Characteristics of Local and Exotic Types of Livestock

LOCAL TYPE

• Mature live weight is small.
• Found mostly in tropical temperature zones with temperatures between 15–30°C.
• Highly heat tolerant.
• Low yield of meat, eggs, wool, etc.
• Disease tolerant.

Low pasture nutritive value: Most tropical grasses grow very fast during the wet season but have low nutritive content compared to temperate areas. This results in poor animal health and low production yields.

Presence of harmful organisms, parasites, and vectors: The high temperatures combined with low relative humidity in Tanzania create favorable breeding grounds for parasites and vectors, reducing livestock productivity.

SOCIAL ECONOMIC FACTORS AFFECTING LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION

1. Traditional practices among livestock keepers: Poor livestock husbandry is common due to reliance on traditional methods, keeping animals for prestige or social needs, and overstocking without considering pasture availability, leading to low yields.
2. Lack of specialization: Specializing in production, such as keeping cattle only for meat (beef), leads to better management and improved performance.
3. Lack of capital: Investment in livestock production requires capital for purchasing good breeds, drugs, constructing water supply dams and housing, and buying improved pasture seeds. Lack of capital results in poor production.
4. Poor technology: Proper feeding, breeding, and disease control require skills that many keepers lack.

INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS

• Inadequate support services, including poor extension services.
• Insufficient technical and research centers for livestock production in Tanzania.
• Shortage of suitable livestock breeds, feeds, veterinary drugs, and other inputs.

HOW TO OVERCOME THE PROBLEMS

• Provision of credit facilities to encourage livestock keeping through loans.
• Improvement of extension services and veterinary support to transfer livestock technology from research centers.
• Enhancement of livestock input supply, such as feeds, pasture seeds, and drugs.
• Discouragement of social and traditional taboos that hinder livestock production development.

LIVESTOCK FARMING SYSTEMS

These are systems used to raise different types of livestock:

1. Free range
2. Intensive
3. Semi-intensive

Free Range

This system allows animals to find their own feed freely during the day while being locked in a house at night. It is sometimes called the extensive system.

It is commonly used in poultry farming and sometimes for goats and sheep.

Characteristic Features:

• Stock numbers are very low compared to the large area of land used.
• Animals receive little or no extra feed, eating only insects, grass, and other available feed.
• Minimal disease prevention and animal growth management.

Advantages:

1. Low initial capital required to start.
2. No feed costs as animals feed themselves.
3. Cheap or small houses can be used for shelter.
4. Animals get a lot of exercise due to extensive movement.

Disadvantages:

1. Large space is needed to allow animals to roam and find food.
2. Animals may damage people’s property, such as crops, while searching for food.
3. Animals are at risk of theft, predation, or accidents.
4. High exposure to adverse weather and parasites.
5. Egg collection is difficult.
6. Animals tend to have low live weight due to excessive walking.

Intensive

This system confines animals in a well-controlled environment, such as a house or fenced area, where feeding is done inside.

Advantages:

• Large numbers of animals can be kept on a small area of land.
• Animals are protected and safe within enclosures.
• Easy provision of extra feed.
• Better disease and pest control.
• Protection from adverse weather.
• Possible to keep detailed records for breeding purposes.
• Easy collection of products such as eggs.

Characteristics:

• High stocking density in a small area.
• Animals are confined within fences or houses.
• Extra feed is provided regularly.

Disadvantages:

• Requires high skill for disease control and housing management.
• High initial capital needed for construction and water supply.
• High feed costs.

Semi-intensive

This system partially confines animals during the night, while during the day they are released to feed within a fenced area.

Features / Characteristics:

• A house constructed at the center of a fenced area.
• Paddocks where animals graze.
• Water troughs located within feeding areas.

Advantages:

• Simple and inexpensive housing can be constructed.
• Reduced feed costs as animals graze outside the house.
• Animals can be easily attended to.

Disadvantages:

• Number of animals is limited due to construction costs of houses and paddocks.

PRINCIPLES OF LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION

These involve the following key aspects:

• Breed selection
• Feeding
• Housing
• Pest, parasite, and disease control
• Stockmanship

Breed Selection

Meaning: The process of choosing particular animals from a group as parents for future generations.

Traits observed include:

• Best milk producers
• Best meat producers

Methods of Selection

• Based on physical appearance
• Based on animal records and individual performance
• Selection index considering economic importance of traits and heredity

Importance of Breed Selection

• Facilitates selection of animals producing better quality products such as wool, milk, and meat.
• Helps select disease-resistant animals.
• Enables selection of animals adapted to specific climates, e.g., Jersey cattle resist tropical climates, Friesian cattle suit semi-arid areas.
• Improves resistance to high temperatures and drought.

Selection Time

Breed selection is best done after animals reach full maturity when physical characteristics are clearly visible.

Feeding

Feeding refers to supplying a balanced diet to animals of different classes and ages to meet their nutritional needs.

Suitable Feeding Periods

Feeding times depend on the animal’s body requirements, including:

• Body maintenance
• Growth stage
• Reproductive stage
• Production stage (milk, eggs, meat, fats, wool)

Types of Feeds Suitable for Different Classes of Animals

a) Concentrates: Feeds with low moisture content but high nutritive value, such as protein concentrates like cottonseed, sunflower, groundnut cakes, and fish meal.

• Energy concentrates include cereal grains and by-products like maize bran and rice bran.
• Concentrates are the main food for non-ruminants like pigs and poultry, while ruminants receive concentrates as supplements.

b) Roughage: Feeds high in fiber content, such as pasture grass, straw, and hay.

• Hay is a major food for ruminants (cattle, goats, sheep) because they have bacteria that break down cellulose.
• Types of roughage include hays (legume and grass), straws (wheat, barley, oats), fodder, and stovers.

IMPORTANCE OF PROPER ANIMAL FEEDING

• Facilitates fast growth.
• Promotes good animal health and disease resistance.
• Increases animal fertility and production.
• Optimizes production levels of animal products such as wool and eggs.

Housing

Housing provides shelter to farm animals to protect them from:

• Adverse weather such as cold, rain, or sun
• Predators like snakes
• Thieves
• Insect pests such as tsetse flies and ticks

Buildings should have a slight slope to facilitate water drainage. Concrete floors and suitable roofing materials protect animals from rain and sun.

In cattle houses, bedding materials such as grass or straw should be provided and changed regularly. Poultry houses should also have bedding.

Good ventilation is essential to provide fresh air.

Feeding and water facilities should be sufficient to reduce fighting among animals.

Diseases & Parasites

Healthy: Refers to the normal, effective, and proper functioning of an animal’s body parts.

Parasites: Organisms that derive nourishment from another organism (host) without benefiting the host, such as worms, ticks, and microorganisms.

Host: The organism that provides support or livelihood to the parasite and suffers from the disease.

Control of Animal Diseases

This can be done either:

(a) Directly: By treating animals with drugs once the disease has established. See animals with drugs.

(b) Indirectly: Through preventive measures and management practices.

Prevention and Control of Animal Diseases

Animal owners are responsible for the care and health of their animals. Governments set rules to monitor animal health, focusing on prevention, monitoring, and control of diseases.

Specific rules apply to certain diseases due to their social, economic, or public health impact.

Prevention of Animal Diseases

• Owners must:
  • Prevent introduction and spread of diseases.
  • Maintain adequate hygiene.
  • Be alert to disease symptoms.
  • Comply with import requirements.
  • Notify veterinarians of suspected diseases.
• During increased risk of infectious diseases, stricter supervision of animal transport is applied, including bans on imports from infected countries.

Travelers

In some holiday destinations, infectious animal diseases like foot and mouth or bird flu are prevalent. Travelers are advised to avoid contact with animals abroad to prevent introducing pathogens into their home countries.

Notifiable Animal Diseases

Certain diseases require mandatory reporting due to their rapid spread, serious damage, difficulty in control, or threat to public health. Governments may impose additional control measures upon notification.

Some animal diseases are also notifiable under international conventions.

Reporting Animal Diseases

If an animal shows symptoms of a notifiable disease, the owner, veterinarian, or laboratory must notify authorities immediately.

Highly Infectious Animal Diseases

The government is required to combat certain notifiable diseases by implementing measures to prevent their spread, following national policy scenarios.

Other Preventive and Curative Measures of Livestock Diseases

• Isolation: Separating diseased animals from healthy ones to prevent infection.
• Quarantine: Restricting movement of animals in or out of infected areas, often enforced by authorities.
• Destruction of disease vectors such as ticks and tsetse flies through habitat destruction, chemical spraying, and bush clearing.
• Prophylactic measures: Routine drenching at four-week intervals.
• Slaughtering: Used in cases of highly infectious diseases like foot and mouth disease (FMD).
• Vaccination: Artificially inducing immunity by injecting preventive drugs.

Stockman

A stockman is a person who keeps and manages animals.

Qualities of Good Stockmanship

• Kindness to animals, avoiding beating, pulling ears, twisting tails, or torture.
• Knowledge of daily and monthly routine operations such as drenching, spraying, dipping, and vaccination.
• Maintaining up-to-date production records and breeding accounts to identify changes and respond accordingly.
• Understanding of animal diseases and reproduction.

Mixed farming is an agricultural system that combines crop production with livestock raising simultaneously. On such farms, alongside crop cultivation, other agricultural practices like poultry, dairy farming, or beekeeping are adopted. This system is dominant in Europe and parts of India. Initially used mainly for self-consumption, mixed farming in advanced countries like the USA and Japan is now practiced commercially.

For example, a farm may grow cereal crops and keep cattle, sheep, pigs, or poultry.

In mixed farming, animal dung is often used to fertilize crops. Historically, before horses were used for haulage, young male cattle were castrated and used as bullocks to pull carts and ploughs instead of being slaughtered for meat.

Advantages of Mixed Farming

1. Mutual benefit between animals and crops: plants provide feed, and animals provide manure.
2. Balanced diet from plant and animal products improves farmer health.
3. Continuous cash flow from diversified production.
4. Animal feces can be used in biogas production for electricity.

Disadvantages of Mixed Farming

• High labor demand to manage both crops and livestock.
• Limited to areas suitable for both animal and crop production.
• Requires a high level of technology and management skills.
• Production inefficiency due to diversification.