/r/livestock
A sub for everyone who loves all animals farmy - and a few that aren't.
A sub for everyone who loves all animals farmy - and a few that aren't.
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/r/agpolitic - The news about agriculture.
/r/Ranching - A place for stockmen, grass farmers, and cowboys to gather.
/r/Beekeeping - everything about keeping bees.
/r/Seedstock - Links to places to buy or sell heritage breeds, and rare, livestock.
/r/AnimalWelfare - Links on care for pets, livestock, and animals in general.
/r/Equus - Anything related to horses, mules, and donkeys.
/r/Homestead - Life on your own little farm.
/r/LivingOffTheLand - Discuss all aspects of living off the land.
/r/fencebuilding - Build a better fence.
/r/livestock
Has anyone else noticed ground beef having a barn or manure like smell lately? I seem to be the only one I know who can smell and taste it and it's driving me nuts . It's happening with the ground beef and pork chops I buy from any store doesn't matter how fresh it is or where I get it ?! I'm in western Canada.
So for context, I am starting my show lamb / market lamb breeding program next autumn by breeding my current show lamb around that time. As with anyone starting a show lamb program , I want what I'm producing to be the best quality and have the best success rate I can ensure. The issue , is that my show lamb is a crossbred/club lamb with a white face. (White dorper / rambouillet with some Suffolk in there) Now I love the look of a whiteface , but as far as club lambs go they just don't place well in the ring since blackface and blue club lambs cut a nicer silloute.
I'm considering attending an artificial insemination clinic for sheep that travels through the Midwest with her , and artificially breeding her to a blue ram. If I were to do that , what are the chances of her having a baby with a white face vs a blackface or a blue ? ( If she doesn't take from the AI I'll breed her to a Suffolk ram that her breeder currently owns )
I work on a small dairy farm with around 150 holsteins. Next week, we have a 4h group coming to visit and I was instructed to come up with an activity to teach them about calving. I have no idea what sort of “hands on” activity to do. Anyone have any ideas? The kids are like 8-14 so a pretty large range.
What should I expect to pay per pound for a pig for butchering? Live in central PA if that is relevant
I am looking to get a few sheep not a specific breed, I want to look for less wool variety and more meat. I’d plan to let them breed, graze the land 20 acres of 80% grass, then sell males/excess females at auction. My question is around what would I require to be able to sell them? I welcome any educational sites to reference required paperwork, how to identify them, vaccines required for sale and would I be able to vaccinate or would they need to go through a vet for paper trails.
I’m pretty new to the overall life, I have a small flock of chickens and turkeys and have sourced some good nearby stores for their needs; but I don’t anticipate selling them in anyway.
Super early stages! Just trying to do something with the land for a supplemental income.
I am a college student doing a project on animal welfare and I would love to hear responses from small scale/hobby farmers on animal welfare. Your experience and perspective would be incredibly valuable on animal welfare practices. The link is in the comments, thanks!
So I'm considering signing up for a starter flock program through my states breeder and wool producer association intended for Juniors entering the sheep industry ( Wich is what I am ) this specific program would provide me with an interest free loan that I would purchase ten yearling Rambouillet ewes with. I would only have to pay 70% of the value of ewes back, and I would be assigned a mentor. The only sheep I have right now is my show lamb ( who is kept with goat friends so she's not alone ) I feel like it would be a great stepping stone into having my own program for meat and wool production (I am learning to spin ), but Im also on the fence on applying for it; does anyone have any advice? Any experience with rambouillets ? My lamb is a rambouillet/dorper cross but I'm pretty sure having a cross and a registered sheep is different. Idk if this would be a good idea , especially since I keep my sheep on my parents property and probably will be doing that until I'm able to buy my own property. (For additional context I'm 17 , and will be applying when I'm 18)
So I think one of my chickens got in a fight with another chicken. The very top of her beak was bleeding, but I was able to stop it. She seems to be in a lot of pain. Her right eye is also swelled shut 😢 she hardly eats or drinks. I’ve brought her inside away from the flock and she is sleeping a lot. I’m very new to raising chickens, and I just want to do the right thing here. I love her and I need advice on how to diminish her pain so maybe she can recover.
I'm planning on breeding my Ewe lamb next September for January lambs to be market lambs for my freshman year of college , and since I'm applying for a grant ATM that requires me to plan all my decisions next year and I'm deciding on if I want to use a live ram ( I worked a deal out with her breeder to where I can bring her back to be bred to one of their rams she isnt related to) or if I want to buy the equipment to do AI with the grant and take classes on how to do it.
I'm not sure how practical it is but I'd like to avoid having my own ram until I expand my operation past one sheep (she isn't alone she has goat friends ) , plus Ive seen multiple people say that rams can be very dangerous and I live with my family and little siblings. Transporting her , leaving her with a ram for a few weeks , and picking her up wouldn't be too hard but I'm sure id miss her terribly. Any adivice ?? Does anyone else AI their sheep ?? What are some pros and cons of each one ?
Edit : forgot to add this , I would also use the equipment/ knowledge for my goat herd. It might make it so I can get percentage Boer goats to use for market showmanship too , we also have pigs and my mom isn't keen on the idea of having an intact boar either.
I am a senior mechanical engineering student in New York and my senior design project is optimizing livestock monitoring. I would love to interview some livestock farmers to hear about the systems they currently use and how they chose them. Please dm me or comment below if you would be open to an interview. I am open to livestock farmers of any scale located anywhere
I don't have any pictures of me standing next to my lamb or I'd show them , but I recently got my first show lamb about a week and a half ish ago and I've gotten her decently well halter broke in that time. However , I'm starting to train her to brace and it's been very hard for both of us. She's a seven month old dorper / rambouillet cross weighing on at about 90 lbs and is very tall and long , whereas I'm very short (4'11 and my wingspan is 4'9 ) and while she's a great girl it's very hard for me to lean over and adjust and move her legs. She also just won't push into me to brace, does anyone have any tips ?? My show goats in the past all learned to brace really easily and it helped that they were much younger and smaller than she is now. Everything I've seen online really only applies to or helps people who's lambs are either much smaller or much younger.
I also don't have a proper lamb stand atm ( I have milking stands for my goats that are short enough to where she can rest her head on the top and I can use her halter to tie her into it similar to a typical lamb stands head lock but I have to manually lift her into it and like I said she is a big , heavy , squirmy girl )
I am so stumped on what to wear for a costume contest at our last show of the year. I thought I would have it figured out by now but I’m sooooo stumped
I very recently got my first show lamb after almost showing a market goat , and showing several dairy goats. The last time I was actively showing I lived in a hilly part of California and since I moved to the flattest place in existence ( North Dakota) I've been wondering about good exercises to build muscle , more specifically topline.
I already have my show lambs grain raised so she has to stand on a step to reach it, Wich I did for my failed market goat.
I don't have any hot walkers or lamb tractors. When I was showing goats to build their muscle I walked them uphill daily but we've moved and I don't have access to a hill anymore. does anyone have any tips ?? anything and everything appreciated. Atm she's not getting a grain ration quite yet ( pasture hay )since she was on just pasture hay when at her breeder, and she isn't going to be sheared until February since it can get to -45 degrees fahrenheit in the winter. I don't show till next June , and she isn't a market lamb.
Hello. I am a university Biology professor and I am forever looking for reference photographs showing species diversity (different species) and variation (differences between individuals of the same species) that I can put on tests. It's surprisingly difficult to google search such pictures because the results often have only one individual of each type of animal (e.g. a horse, a cow, a duck, and a sheep) or there's multiples of only one species in the picture (e.g. 20 cows). To make this easier, having more than one person in the shot counts as long as there are also multiple individuals of some other kind of animal because "human" is a species too. For example, I've used pictures from dog shows but it's hard to find anything BUT dogs and cats displayed that way. I'm also aware of the existence of 4H competitions, but a truly astounding number of those pictures seem to be taken from animal's rear end perspective so that's not great (btw,if anyone knows why, I'd love to know. Is the cow's butt more important than it's head from a judging perspective?). I've also thought of using something like coral reef fish since they often travel in multiples, but I like to stick to species that are universally recognizable so no one panics for lack of knowing a species name. I'm entirely open to other, more easily searched suggestions as well.
If any of ya'll have pictures with at least 2 individuals each of two different species in the same shot, I would be extremely appreciative if you could upload them. And again, "human" counts as a species so I'm not necessarily asking for multiple individuals from 4 different species of farm animal in the same shot (though that would be amazing if you've got it). Thanks in advance!
Her sire is “The Dealer” and her dam is “Sinckers”. We like to some how incorporate both some how some way. She would be getting registered.