Small-Scale Livestock Farming

by Carol Ekarius

  Respiratory illnesses can occur in all species and are often caused by some of the normal flora that have gotten out of control when an animal is stressed. Stress caused by poor management (such as drafts or ammonia fumes in buildings, and poor nutrition) or transportation of animals is often the underlying cause of respiratory illnesses. It is very common in young animals of all species.

  Treatment

  If mature animals have no fever and are still eating well, we simply keep an eye on them, but respiratory illness in young animals is again far more serious. Keep them warm, administer electrolytes, and call the vet if the problem persists for more than 24 hours or seems to be getting worse.

  If your animals are going to come into contact with other animals — for example, if you plan to show them, or if you’ll be bringing new animals in and out of your herd — many contagious respiratory diseases can be prevented through vaccination.

  Alternative Health Practices

  This topic might be controversial in some circles. Many members of the medical and veterinary communities scoff at such practices as homeopathy, acupuncture/acupressure, and herbalism as nothing more than quackery. Personally, I don’t agree; we’ve had good luck with alternative practices, and they have been in use in other parts of the world for considerably longer than our modern medicine has. I concur that these aren’t a simple replacement for the practices that are considered conventional at this time and place in history, but many alternatives deserve consideration.

  When we first began milking cows, we used antibiotics as a regular tool for mastitis control, but we had a few high-producing cows that suffered chronic, low-level infections. We would treat them with an antibiotic, and the infection would partially clear up, but in no time flat their somatic cell count (SCC) would start to climb again. Somatic cell count is a laboratory test routinely run on milk shipped to a dairy processor; dairy farmers are paid a premium for milk with a low SCC, and docked for milk with a high SCC. Somatic cells are a type of white blood cell that are part of the immune system’s initial response to infection. The higher the SCC, the worse the infection is. Our interest in alternative practices really grew out of our desire to maintain a very low SCC without the constant use of antibiotics.

  Learning more about alternative practices will take some time, and some additional research, but may be worth it for you. Also, some veterinarians are beginning to practice these alternatives. (Check appendix E, Resources, for information on finding one in your area.)

  Homeopathy

  Our earliest forays into alternative medicine began with homeopathy. Homeopathy is a medical practice that uses special preparations of natural substances to stimulate an immune response. These preparations contain minute quantities of a plant, animal, or mineral substance. For example, trace amounts of bee venom go into the preparation known as “apis mellifica,” and trace amounts of wild hops are used to prepare “bryonia.”

  The principle behind homeopathy is that “like treats like.” So a preparation like apis mellifica would be used for a bee sting, or “alium cepa” (red onion) would be used for a runny nose.

  One of the first homeopathic preparations we began using in our quest to eliminate antibiotics was homeopathic sulfur, and our success rate with it was good enough to convince us that alternatives weren’t simply quackery. Over the next few years, with lots of further study, we began using a wide variety of preparations for the various problems that crop up from time to time, both for the animals and for ourselves.

  Acupressure

  I never got the hang of acupressure myself, but I saw an experienced veterinarian use it; after watching him there was no question in my mind that it wasn’t quackery. He was doing a demonstration of the technique on a 3-year-old dairy cow. Prior to the demonstration, he’d given us a chart of acupressure points on a cow. When he reached one of the points for the lungs, there was a definite and strong reaction. He’d never seen this cow before — or met the farmer whose cow it was. He turned to the farmer and said, “This cow suffered with a severe case of pneumonia recently, didn’t she?” The farmer, who was in a state of shock, confirmed that she’d had a bad bout of pneumonia the previous winter!

  Reproduction

  For most of us, one of the greatest joys of raising livestock comes from the miracle of reproduction; witnessing the birth of a calf, seeing the first bumbling steps of a colt, or spying a clutch of chicks peaking out from under their mother’s ruffled feathers is part of what draws us to animal agriculture in the first place. But the reproductive processes — breeding, gestation, and delivery — can also be a source of trouble.

  Unless you are taking up an esoteric form of animal agriculture such as worm farming, you are dealing with animals that always reproduce through a sexual process. Sexual reproduction requires a male to supply sperm and a female to supply an egg.

  Males produce sperm in the testicles. In mammals, the testicles hang outside the body in the scrotum, but in birds they are internal — a fact that makes the sexing of young birds a real challenge! The scrotum is designed to help regulate the temperature of the testes, dropping lower to reduce temperature during warm weather, and pulling in closer to the body during cold weather to maintain a higher temperature. Generally, sperm require temperatures that are 4° to 5°F (–16° to –15°C) cooler than normal body temperature to survive (Figure 8.5).

  With each ejaculation, males send billions of sperm cells in search of an egg. Boars lead the pack, with 50 billion sperm per ejaculation. Only one sperm is actually required to fertilize each egg. Although billions of sperm cells are released with each ejaculation, many don’t survive long enough to meet the egg. For example, bovine sperm remain viable for only about 12 hours, but chicken sperm can remain viable in the hen’s reproductive tract for up to 2 months.

  Sperm cells come in two varieties, called X and Y. The X type is responsible for female offspring, the Y type for male. The mother’s egg is sexually neutral, so she plays no part in determining the offspring’s sex.

  Unlike males, which regularly produce new sperm cells from puberty until very old age, females have their full complement of eggs at puberty. Eggs are produced and then stored for life in the ovaries (Figure 8.6). All species contain two ovaries, but a quirk of nature provides poultry with only the left ovary as a developed, working unit.

  Figure 8.5. For a male animal to perform in a breeding capacity, his reproductive organs must be normal, healthy, and fully developed. Though most are, problems crop up occasionally. Retained testicles is possibly one of the most common problems in male animals. If the testicles do not drop down into the scrotum, the temperature in the testicles remains too hot, thereby reducing sperm viability.

  Figure 8.6. As with males, females require healthy reproductive organs for breeding. One of the most common causes of failure to breed in females is scar tissue in the vagina, cervix, or uterus, resulting from infection following a prior birth. It is important to check females after they’ve given birth for any pussy discharges that might indicate some internal infection is present. Slight cases often can be treated simply with a sanitizing douche.

  Estrus Cycle

  The whole process whereby eggs are released from the ovaries is referred to as the estrus cycle. This complicated process begins at puberty and extends into fairly old age. The cycle is controlled by the ebb and flow of four major hormones: follicle-stimulating hormone, estrogen, luteinizing hormone, and progesterone. The length of the cycle varies from species to species, and in most species the female will only allow the male to breed her for a short period during the cycle, called heat or the estrus period. Males sense the estrus period through smell.

  Normally cows and mares release one egg per cycle, so twins are unusual, and triplets are a real rarity. Ewes typically drop between one and three eggs per cycle, though some breeds are capable of dropping up to six. As in the male of the species, sows are the big producers, dropping as many as twenty eggs per cycle. Chickens can drop about twen
ty-eight eggs per month (Table 8.2).

  Multiple births are most often the result of dropping multiple eggs. Occasionally, however, one fertilized egg splits in two at the beginning of development. This is the anomaly that causes identical twins.

  The estrus cycle in some species, including horses, sheep, goats, and chickens, is seasonally cyclic. Their cycles are controlled by the number of hours of daylight, and during part of the year they do not come into heat. Cows and pigs cycle regularly all year long.

  When eggs leave the ovaries, they travel down the fallopian tubes. As the egg travels down the tube, it will become fertilized if sperm is present, and settle into the uterus for development. (Birds are the exception, with development taking place outside the body.) The period of development is called gestation or, in the case of birds, incubation.

  Table 8.2

  REPRODUCTIVE INFORMATION

  Fertilization

  Fertilization may either take place au naturel — through copulation between a male and a female — or through artificial insemination (AI). AI is now a common practice for most species of livestock. Dairy cows and turkeys are almost all bred artificially in commercial agriculture. The use of AI is also increasing dramatically in the pork industry. Other species are still bred largely the old-fashioned way: Boy meets girl. AI does have some good points including ability for all farmers to have access to high-quality sires and the elimination of the need for keeping male breeding stock on site; also, the price isn’t exorbitant.

  The fertilized egg is called a zygote, and although it starts out as two unique cells — an egg and a sperm — it is considered a single cell in its own right. It begins to split into additional cells almost immediately. The zygote “plants” itself into the wall of the uterus, at which point it’s called an embryo. In a truly remarkable process, embryonic cells continue to split into more cells, differentiating into the various types of cells that are ultimately required for a fully developed organism, including blood cells, muscle cells, and skin cells. The “instructions” for how to correctly split and differentiate are supplied in the chains of genetic material that each parent provides.

  Infertility

  Infertility problems can occur in both males and females, but are more common in females. Though we never had a single case of male infertility, when it does occur it is a much bigger problem than female infertility, because one male is responsible for breeding many females. If the prize ram you paid dearly for is a dud, there are no lambs next year! If a female is infertile, she won’t have any lambs, but the rest of the flock will. Vets can test a male’s fertility for you.

  One of the main causes of infertility in females is an infectious process in the uterus following the birth of last year’s babies. The infection occurs most often when the animal has failed to pass the afterbirth. It’s a good idea to check for the afterbirth, though at times you won’t find it, because many animals eat it. This habit probably evolved as a method of hiding the evidence of birth from predators. Even if the mother doesn’t eat it, other animals may (our dogs spent most of the spring looking around the pastures for some of this fine stuff). If you haven’t seen the afterbirth, keep an eye on the mother for discharges over the next week or two; clear to slightly turbid mucous discharges with some blood are quite normal, but if the discharge looks pussy have the vet come out and check the animal.

  Delivery

  At the end of gestation, the fully formed embryo is ready to pop out into the world as an infant. The last few days prior to delivery, Mama begins to show signs that the big event is near. Her udder begins to swell with milk. The area around her tail-head begins to flatten out, and appears sunken. Mucus begins discharging from the vulva, and the vulva itself looks puffy. Often, during these last few days, mothers act kind of funny: They often go off by themselves, avoiding people and other members of the herd; they may “talk” more than normal; or they may act quite restless, lying down and getting back up frequently. Close to the time of birth, a sack of fluid may show up and break.

  Labor can last just a few minutes, or hours. First-time mothers generally take longer for labor than those that have delivered babies in the past do. The most common delivery position is front feet first, followed by the nose (Figure 8.7). After the shoulders pass through the cervix (the strong muscle that protects the uterus from the outside world), the baby just about shoots out, but getting to that point can take time. Rear presentations, or breech births, are far less common than frontal deliveries, but they can happen.

  Troubled deliveries are really few and far between if the mother is in good health. Over all the years and all the hundreds of babies born to our animals, we had to assist only a few times. As a rule of thumb, any animal that has struggled in labor for over an hour, or that is obviously weak and tired, needs assistance.

  Figure 8.7. In a normal presentation birth, the front feet come first and facing up, followed by nose and face, shoulders, and then the rest of the body. Most births are normal presentation and require no assistance, though sometimes an extremely large baby will get wedged at the shoulders and require some pulling. Once the shoulders pass the cervix, the birth happens quickly.

  Call a vet in the first time or two that you run into a problem delivery. After you’ve worked through the procedures with an experienced guide, you’ll be able to do what’s needed on your own most of the time, but that first exposure definitely benefits from guidance. I’d be cautious about asking other farmers for help and advice in this particular department; many of the old-timers we met were too quick to pull babies, used too much and the wrong kind of force, and caused more problems than they prevented. Most vets have at least one or two horror stories to confirm this observation.

  Once the infant comes into the world, Mom will lick it down to clean off the mucus it’s coated in. Sometimes a first-time mom is confused about what’s going on. In this case, make sure the baby’s air passage (the area around its nose and mouth) is cleaned up so it can breathe. If it isn’t breathing, give it a good strong slap on the side.

  One trick we used on more than one occasion to get a new mama “in the groove” was to bring the dogs over near the baby. Even if she isn’t quite sure what the baby is or what she’s supposed to do with it, if Mom senses a predator nearby her maternal instincts seem to kick in! (Just make sure you have enough control of your dogs that they can’t attack the infant.)

  Nursing

  Baby animals need to begin nursing soon after birth for two reasons: to get the colostrum, and to get the energy. Watch Mother and Baby from a distance for about 45 minutes. If Junior hasn’t found the teat by then, it’s time to get involved. First, make sure that Mom’s teats are open by hand-stripping a little milk out of each. Then nudge the baby into position and hold its mouth against the teat, working the mouth like an air pump. Once or twice over the years, in the case of especially weak babies, we had to strip a little milk into a nipple jar and feed the first serving that way. This usually got a baby’s energy up to the point where it could work at feeding itself.

  Restraint

  If you can’t control an animal, taking care of its problems is quite difficult. We work to get all our breeding animals tame enough so that we can move them easily into controlled areas. They can then be worked into smaller pens, which make restraint easier. This is something to begin early.

  If you are dealing with fairly wild animals, you’ll need an extensive handling system that includes catch pens, chutes, and headgates. These can be expensive, so consider the cost if you plan on running stockers or species like deer, elk, or bison!

  At times you can exert enough control in a confined area, such as a stall, to do what needs to be done without additional restraints, but often you’ll need more control. Halters, ropes, nose rings, and twitches are all good tools for controlling animals. Again, though, I can’t do justice to the topic of restraint in this short chapter. The vet books listed in the appendix E, Resources, have excellent sections on restraint, as
well as on administering medications. Check them out, or visit with your veterinarian.

  Farmer profile

  Herman Beck-Chenoweth and Linda Lee

  Locust Grove Farm, Inc., of Creola, Ohio, is a unique operation. When Herman and Linda started the farm, they had very specific ideas about what they wanted to do — they wanted to develop a sustainable living program, and they wanted to involve others in that program. Today, their farm is incorporated as a nonprofit organization and operated as an intentional community.

  “We believe that the bottom line isn’t the bottom line,” Herman explains. “If we can improve our piece of ground by fostering healthy natural cycles — like the nutrient and water cycles — and if we can take care of most of our needs for food and energy, and make a little money to boot, then we are profitable. Making the most money possible but destroying our resources isn’t profitable, even if traditional accounting says it is.”

  The farm is about equally divided among tillable ground, pasture ground, and woodlands. Goals of the community include being self-sufficient in food and using minimal energy. The community also markets excess produce, meat, and eggs, and runs a small publishing operation.

  The community members began processing chickens for sale in 1992. “Using fairly inexpensive facilities ($250 worth of equipment), two people can process 30 birds per hour. The bottleneck beyond that is the evisceration step.”

  Locust Grove community members raise and slaughter about 900 chickens and 100 turkeys per year for market purposes, which is the maximum amount allowed to be sold, under Ohio law, to meet the on-farm processing exemption. The rest of the birds they raise are for community use.