By Heather Smith Thomas
Hay is the mainstay diet for our livestock. Learn the intricacies of hay types, nutritional content and quality before purchasing your next load.
Month: August 2015
Meat Waste Has Greater Environmental Impact
By The Sheep Site
University of Missouri researchers have found that the type of food wasted has a significant impact on the environment, and wasted meat has a greater environmental cost.
Goat’s milk chief ingredient for specialty soaps
By Earl Horlyk
Wodtke uses milk from her small herd of saanen goats to make Bloom Wild bar soaps that she sells from her store in Hinton, Iowa.
Silence of the Lambs
By Kerry Grens
A die-off of newborn lambs in Australia leads to the discovery of a new toxin and clues to a devastating liver disease in children.
Upcoming Webinar: Using EBVs
By Susan Schoenian
Using EBVs to Achieve Your Breeding Goals is the subject of the next webinar sponsored by ASI’s Let’s Grow Committee and hosted by Jay Parsons, Ph.D., University of Nebraska-Lincoln. On Wednesday, Aug. 25, at 7 p.m. CDT, Dave Notter, Ph.D., Virginia Tech University, will be presenting this webinar to address strategies to use EBVs to achieve breeding goals and manage genetic change in your flock.
Breeding Soundness Examinations of Rams and Bucks
By Lynn Pezzanite, Dr. Allen Bridges, Dr. Mike Neary, Terry Hutchens
For optimal farm productivity, producers should select rams or bucks that have the ability to settle a large portion of females early in the breeding season and sire offspring with the genetic potential for rapid, efficient growth. To help identify males that are capable or not capable of settling females, producers can perform breeding soundness examinations (BSEs). Up to 10 to 15 percent of rams and bucks are of unsatisfactory reproductive breeding quality. Utilizing a BSE to identify fertile males and eliminate males with sub-par (or inferior) fertility prior to the breeding season can improve economic returns to a flock or herd.
US Agricultural Input Costs Up in 2014
By The Sheep Site
US farmers spent nearly $4 billion on agricultural production in 2014, up 8.3 percent from 2013.
Dairy goats, Devo’s Gerald Casale, chef Robert Irvine and ladies’ facial hair all part of food, drink-related events Aug. 13-19
By Akron Beacon Journal
Here’s your chance to learn all about raising dairy goats, making cheese, composting and living the small farm dream on the Food, Family and Farming Tour, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at Lucky Penny Creamery, 632 Temple Ave., Kent. Join four women in agriculture (Abbe Turner of Lucky Penny Creamery, Gwenn Volkert of Ferrun Moraine Farm and Teresa Kaminski and Amber Sattleberg of the SARE Food Waste for Farms) for some inspiration. Free. Information: 330-715-4140, www.luckypennyfarm.com.
Here’s why goats have those freaky eyes
By Rachael Feltman
In a study published last week in Science Advances, researchers from UC Berkeley and Durham University examined the pupil shapes of goats — and of 213 other land species — to look for patterns. They found that ecological niche — in other words, whether you’re the hunter or the hunted — is a great predictor of how your eyes will be shaped. It’s not an entirely new idea, but now they’ve confirmed the trend in a large number of species, and taken a closer look at how important the variation might be.
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