Poultry

Consider Farming? Consider Chickens?

Farming for Beginners: How to Decide Between Livestock and Plants? Farming, it may seem complicated at first, but is in fact a simple process, the only question is it right for you. Some may think of farming as sitting back and watching over plants or livestock, but unless you can afford to pay people to work your land you will have to participate in the harvest and up keep. Now you may be thinking how you will be able to afford the land and provide other needed items that you are not producing. Well that is quite simple, while you may not be able to mass produce food like the large companies, you can produce more than your family needs to survive. With your extra food you can sell it at a farmers market or to friends. Now with all of the logistics out of the way an interesting topic looms: Will you farm livestock or fruits and vegetables? If your a vegetarian your answer is simple, you will grow fruits and vegetables, however if you are not you still have a difficult decision. While both livestock and fruits and vegetables can yield a profit - livestock can do this with less work for you. The kinds of livestock farming that you could participate in are raising them for sale or raising them and selling their meat and other products. Raising livestock for sale may be another solution for a person who does not want to consume animal products, but selling the meat and other products of the animals is potentially more profitable. The kinds of livestock that you could chose to farm are cattle, pigs, sheep, turkey, and chickens. Each of these animals have reasons both for and against farming them. The cattle can be butchered and milked, both of which could be sold. The sheep’s wool can be harvested as well as mutton. Chickens produce both eggs and meat. Pigs and turkeys however only produce meat. No matter what animal you choose to farm you need to be able to provide some basic necessities like a clean shelter, clean water, and nutritious feed. The shelter needs to be clean of mud and manure, as well as providing enough space for the livestock to be comfortable, this includes ventilation that does not create drafts and proper bedding material, which will need to be changed often to prevent sickness. The clean water is necessary as it helps regulate the body temperature of the animals, and clean [...]

By |2024-01-12T00:36:47+00:00March 4th, 2018|Farm, Animals, Chickens, Poultry|0 Comments

It’s Time to Meet the Future of Meat

Real, Cultured, or Printed? Nowadays we’re accomplishing miracles in the laboratory. It started, of course, with successful cloning, but we’ve moved on to teasing immature stem cells into making all sorts of tissues, such as skin for burn victims, miniature versions of human organs (called organoids) to learn to treat disease, and actual functional organs for lab animals that fulfill the function of a natural organ. More interesting is something that was accomplished back in early 2015. Scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital grew a complete rat forelimb in a petri dish . Fingers/claws, skin, bones, nerves, blood vessels, and muscles all in the right place and functional. In theory, it could be attached to a subject and tested to see if nerve and blood vessels connections were reliable, and if the bones and connective tissue were durable. There is no reason that they shouldn’t be. Meat in a Lab Muscles, of course, are also referred to as meat, and would be fairly undifferentiated from a naturally occurring meat in texture or flavor. What would be the primary difference about meat made in a sterile laboratory? No animals would be slaughtered; there would be no parasites; there would be no fecal contamination; and, most importantly, there would be no antibiotics or growth hormones necessary. There would be no vast tracts of land necessary, dedicated for the use of our current herds of animals. There would be no concurrent crops necessary to feed all these animals as they grew to a size appropriate for the abattoir, and then the local meat market. There would be no need of veterinarian care for herds to treat diseases. It would eliminate animal suffering,because meat would not be sourced from animals at all.  In other words, by just about every popular definition, it would be completely Vegan meat. Of course there are always doubters; those who think meat is bad and artificial meat would be inadequate for some other reason.  It’s very much like people that protest Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) foods—it makes no sense–since everything in our diet is a GMO.  There is virtually nothing in our diet that has not been changed. Franken-Food Everybody loves corn for instance, but 8,700 years ago in Mexico it was known as teosinte, with just a few grains per stalk that would have easily fit on top of a 25¢ coin.  We crossbred many teosinte with more grains than other plants, and eventually came up with the “cob” that was dense with grain.  Yet no [...]

By |2024-02-29T08:01:41+00:00June 27th, 2017|Food, 3-D Pinting, Chicken, Corn, Environmental, Meat, Poultry|0 Comments

Effect of Cows on Environment?

Cows and the Environment: A Surprising Connection Effect of Cows ?   What is the real cost of a steak dinner: A day’s wage or the destruction of an ecosystem? PETA insists that meat is murder. Americans are yet to be dissuaded. But for as long as there have been nice things, there have existed smart alecs to ruin them. An insidious proposition has recently been making its play. Cows flatulence is 70-120kg of Methane gas into our atmosphere annually. The argument goes that Methane, a Greenhouse Gas, traps heat which negatively impacts Earth’s climate. Livestock specifically contributes 26% of all Methane! Therefore, red-blooded Americans must curb their appetite for succulent sirloins otherwise Earth becomes a furnace! Obama declares War on Dairy The US government aims to reduce Methane output from bovines by 25% before the decade closes. But would this significantly impact climate scientists’ models? Here is a breakdown of cattle per top 5 countries. We’ve provided our own high-end annual Methane output estimates. 1) India: 301,600,000 cows. 39,894,851 US tons. 2) Brazil: 219,093,000 cows. 28,981,043 US tons. 3) China: 100,250,000 cows. 13,260,805 US tons. 4) United States: 91,988,000 cows. 12,167,929 US tons. 5) European Union: 88,600,000 cows. 11,719,774 US tons. If the entire US population shunned beef, cattle Methane output would not fall even 10%. “Like, just get rid of all the cows, man.” Assuming cows collectively drop dead tomorrow, the effects would be disastrous. Sure, global Methane output is cut by a quarter. Warming would theoretically decline and Arctic permafrost melt slow. But, even climate scientists acknowledge Earth cannot completely reverse gears. There is a guaranteed amount of climate change. Cows on the other hand play a delectable role. The obvious drawback, albeit manageable, is no beef and considerably less dairy. On the plus side, Cornell University estimates 800 million people could be fed with livestock grain. I personally prefer steak over Shreddies, but c’est la vie. Cornell professor David Pimentel notes that 100,000 litres of water are used for every kilogram of food. The average American consumes 666 litres daily! An omen? Eliminating cattle lets us mitigate water shortages at the very least. Poultry requires less fuel to prepare and provides greater protein per gram. Americans consume approximately 100lbs annually – twice as much as beef. While 800 million people is nothing to sneeze at, reallocating cattle resources feeds only 2% of Earth’s malnourished. Of course, Americans would look for a substitute, vegan or otherwise. Beef makes a colossal contribution to America’s economy. The [...]

By |2024-01-12T13:55:24+00:00July 16th, 2016|Cattle, Cows, Poultry|0 Comments
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