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Poultry litter to biogas adding more value to farm waste
Smaller poultry businesses, comprising mainly broiler and egg producers and suppliers of day-old chicks, are helping address the need for job creation. But this growing industry has a problem: how to manage the environmental impact of ever-greater volumes of poultry litter. The premise of our res...Read more -
Feeding your sheep sorghum
Many communal farming areas have fallow maize lands that have not been used for years. This is not only a waste of space; it leads to the loss of valuable topsoil, which can silt up village dams. In many cases, communities do not replant their lands because the conditions are too dry for maize. A...Read more -
Choosing Afrikaners for extensive beef production
“The Afrikaner is a low-input animal with good-quality beef. Herein lies the real value of the breed,” says Jacquies Steenkamp, who registered his Derus Afrikaner Stud in 1996. Today, he runs 240 Afrikaner female animals, half of which are registered, in the Rouxville district in the southern Fre...Read more -
Why every farmer needs a dog
While I stood waiting outside the library for my mother to come and fetch me, a bakkie came speeding down the road, stopping in a cloud of dust in front of the vet’s office. A farmer got out and carefully lifted a heavy tangle of blankets from the back of the bakkie. There was a dog lying limply ...Read more -
The importance of having a breeding season
Having a breeding (and calving) season can optimise the reproductive performance of a breeding herd and the pre-wean growth rate of calves. This, in turn, can profoundly influence the profit margin of a beef cattle enterprise. The aim of a breeding season is to get the maximum number of female an...Read more -
Grave concern for condition of Namibia’s FMD-protection fence
A widespread outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in Namibia could potentially wipe out the entire livestock production industry in that country. Therefore, the condition of Namibia’s veterinary cordon fence was a serious cause for concern. Following outbreaks of the disease in Kavango East a...Read more -
When performance fails to live up to breeding values
Using estimated breeding values (EBVs) is crucial in animal selection. Well-adapted, genetically superior animals perform better and are more efficient. Even though the environment plays a large role, it is the genetic value of a trait that determines the true potential of the animal. Some farmer...Read more -
Beat the heat! How to care for livestock in extreme weather
The South African Weather Service’s website states that if the maximum temperature in a particular area is expected to meet or exceed 5°C above the average maximum temperature of “the hottest month” for that area, and these conditions persist for three days or more, a heatwave may be declared. Th...Read more -
Fighting food fraud from farm to fork with a mobile ingredient tracing system
Savvy shoppers increasingly expect to know the origin of the food they eat, whether they shop at farmers’ markets or big-box major retailers. A prototype app proposed by researchers at the University of Tokyo aims to provide full transparency from farm to table along food supply chains and ...Read more -
Swine coronavirus replicates in human cells
New research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill suggests that a strain of coronavirus that has recently alarmed the swine industry may have the potential to spread to humans as well. The coronavirus strain, known as swine acute diarrhea syndrome coronavirus (SADS-CoV), emerged f...Read more -
The future of pig genetics
Over the past decade, the use of genomics in pig breeding has helped to accelerate genetic improvement and on-farm performance. “Genetics companies in general have made great strides over the years by making use of performance testing to govern breeding decisions,” says Jurgens Reynders, managing...Read more -
Technology and animal welfare improve piggery profits
CP Kriek and his wife Gerda swapped their industrial engineering careers for farm life in 2012 with the purchase of Bloubank Estates, the holding company for Taaibosch Piggery. “As engineers, we love challenges and taking things that aren’t working optimally and making them better,” says Kriek, w...Read more -
Small-scale pig farmer implements commercial practices
Buti Malinga, together with his sister, Cathy, started Vukani Piggery in 2008 with nine sows after they acquired the 154ha farm, Bronkhorstfontein, near Vanderbijlpark through the state’s land reform programme. The pair had, in fact, grown up on the same farm. Today, thanks to their hard work and...Read more -
Buffalo fly faces Dengue nemesis
Few beef producers in the temperate climate of southern Australia will have encountered the parasitic buffalo fly (Haematobia irritans exigua), a scourge of the cattle industry in the country’s tropical and subtropical north — but maintaining this state of affairs, and also lifting a ...Read more -
Technology Achieves A Healthy Animal Husbandry
From October 19 to 24. 2020, the 9th Forum On China Animal Husbandry Science and Technology was held in Rongchang, a city entitled “Land of Animal husbandry of China”. This forum is biennial since it started in 2004. As the highest level of event on China’s animal husbandry science and technology...Read more -
More Turnover and Consolidation Facing Pig Farmers
The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated trends in the pig business, says Brad Hennen, Ghent, Minnesota. Hennen finishes pigs for Lynch Livestock, as part of its antibiotic-free production system, and is a salesperson for breeding stock company Fast Genetics. He is seeing more turnover of farms t...Read more -
Veterinary pharmaceuticals and antibiotic resistance of Escherichia coli isolates in poultry litter from commercial farms and controlled feeding trials
ABSTRACT Veterinary pharmaceuticals are commonly used in poultry farming to prevent and treat microbial infections as well as to increase feed efficiency, but their use has created public and environmental health concerns. Poultry litter contains antimicrobial residues and resistant bacteria; wh...Read more -
HOW AGRONOMY NEEDS TO DIFFER FOR DAIRY OPERATIONS
Have you ever considered yourself a dairy agronomist? While all producers who put seed in the ground want to grow the highest-yielding crops, there are nuanced differences that can ultimately affect what goes in the milk tank – and directly impact the bottom line. “Dairy agronomists have a thorou...Read more -
WHAT THE PORK INDUSTRY LEARNED FROM THE CORONAVIRUS DEBACLE
COVID-19 dealt a body blow to the pork industry. The year started with many of the largest pig producers expanding sow numbers to meet global demand opportunities. By April, restaurants were closing, packing plants shutting down, and pigs backing up on farms. Today, producers and other experts in...Read more -
Farm antibiotic sales continue to fall across Europe and United Kingdom
ales of antibiotics for use in farm animals are trending downwards in the UK and multiple EU countries. Farm animal antibiotic sales in Europe have fallen once again, with the UK being among the lowest user of antibiotics overall, according to new figures. Data from the 10th Annual Report from th...Read more -
Namibia’s FMD outbreak spreads
Namibia’s recent foot and mouth disease outbreak has spread from its northern region. According to reporting in Reuters, Namibia’s agriculture ministry announced the spread on 28 October. The disease, which does not affect humans but causes lesions and lameness in cattle and sheep, was first det...Read more -
Breeding a resistant and resilient Sussex stud herd
John Viedge of the Lehana’s Pass Sussex Stud run his animals on the farm Highfield, 10km south of Maclear in the Eastern Cape. The property consists of 2 200ha of very hilly terrain, at an altitude of 1 500m; average rainfall is 700mm with the occasional snowfall. Viedge is the second generation ...Read more -
Namibian livestock industry devastated by prolonged drought
Beef cattle sales in Namibia have fallen 31% so far this year compared with the same period in 2019, despite producer price increases of 2% for slaughter cattle and 39% for weaners. As a result, weaner exports declined 49% between January and August year-on-year, Namibia’s Meat Board reported rec...Read more -
Stability studies of oxytetracycline in methanol solution
Abstract. As one kind of typical tetracycline antibiotics, antibiotic residues of oxytetracycline have been frequently detected in many environmental media. In this study, the stability of oxytetracycline in methanol solution was investigated by high-performance liquid chromatography combined wit...Read more
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