The benefits of raising livestock. What a controversial phrase at both ends of raising, caring for cattle like cattle! You have the extreme right wing saying that nothing can be compared to raising cattle, and the other extreme claiming that raising cattle is of absolutely no benefit. Where I’m standing is somewhere in the middle, but I tend to lean more to the right than to the left. But this article is not about arguments about whether there are any benefits in raising livestock, but about what are the benefits of raising these creatures.
There are moral, environmental, emotional, physical, economic and other benefits to raising livestock. Each has its own level of importance for each producer, some more than others. I did not mention finances as a benefit because it seems to many producers that more money is being invested in raising the father’s gummed creatures than is coming out! Really, there aren’t many financial benefits to raising cattle, even if you strive to be a low-cost producer. It takes more money for the care, feeding and welfare of these animals than you can get from them, regardless of whether you are selling your meat outright or selling your livestock to the local barn.
However, for many, raising livestock can get you a tax exemption. I’m not exactly sure how or how the whole process works, but I do know that if you raise cattle or some form of cattle for profit, it can act as a tax break. Livestock is also a huge economic benefit for many countries, contributing billions of dollars annually from the sale, export, and import of live animals, carcasses, and boxed beef. Too bad it doesn’t reflect it on the people who raise them …
Regardless, the hard work that goes into the end is worth it. Raising cattle is said to be 90% hard work and 10% satisfaction, and I think that 10% satisfaction is what many producers strive for: seeing new calves fall to the ground and grow into strong, healthy animals. and watch them be sold. hit the market when they’re good and ready to go. This is where the moral benefits come into play. Raising cattle requires a lot of hard work and you have to be diligent, almost like a cat or jenny-of-all-of-all, and not be the type that likes to stick to normal daily routines. The reason I say this is that your farm tasks change with each season: calving in the spring, raising bulls in the summer, haying in the summer, processing calves in the fall, preparing for fall-winter feeding. spring, etc. Fences need to be checked regularly, cattle regularly, kept up to date with times to vaccinate, check pregnancy, put bulls in and out, wean calves, the list goes on. Some producers have more machinery to maintain and repair than others, and this too is a task in itself and can take a lot of time and effort.
There will undoubtedly be times when you will wonder why you went into raising cattle in the first place. It can be emotionally charged if you’ve gotten into something that you didn’t expect to be so difficult. But it can be an emotional payoff when you see all the blood, sweat, and tears you put into your operation come out in the form of a good-sized paycheck for the cattle you worked to the end to raise, or you see your cows. give birth. and raise some nice calves. It can even be a reward when you can buy some new and improved handling facilities or a new tractor. I don’t think anything makes a farmer happier or more excited than a brand new tractor!
Hard work can also bring physical benefits. Who needs to hit a gym when you have all the physical work required on a cattle ranch or farm? Not only do you not have time to hit a gym, let alone work out on your own exercise equipment at home, if you have any, but farming is far more physically demanding than most realize. Although you still spend a lot of time sitting on the tractor, you still need to be strong to spread straw, cut and pull the bale ropes (which is not an easy task, remember my words!), Shoveling manure from a barn, pulling a calf from a cow that is having a hard time pushing it, lifting and moving blocks of salt to replace the ones that have already been eaten, moving small square bales of hay / straw by hand, mending / building fences, the list goes on. I heard a story where a rancher asked one of his friends from town to help him a little with some fencing on his farm. His friend from town was the type who runs every day and goes to the gym every day and stays in good shape. The rancher himself didn’t seem like a fitness fanatic compared to his friend, but his level of strength and endurance when he was building fences far exceeded his friend from town. By the time they finished a section of the fence, the producer’s friend was exhausted and the producer was ready to move on.
You get a little tougher and stronger when you’ve lived on a farm for a long time. He quickly learns that there is no time to feel grossed out because of cow shit on his hands or pants, or to complain about something as trivial as a broken fingernail when handling or working with livestock. Cows don’t care, so neither should you. A person from the city will not understand what type of skin you should have until they have put themselves in your place and made it themselves. The jokes that are likely to offend them can be something to laugh about with your friends or herd neighbors. No, you cannot be thin-skinned or overly sensitive to be part of the livestock business.
It also takes a bit of intelligence and a fair amount of scientific knowledge to be successful in the livestock business, especially if you want it to be profitable for the environment. The only way it can be done is if you become a steward of your land and herd your livestock so that you are taking care of the land. Responsible grazing of livestock through intensive managed grazing will help improve soil quality, increase organic matter content, restore and maintain areas of wildlife habitat such as wetlands, swamps, and salt marshes, and increase biomass content both above as below ground. Livestock manure returns to the soil it belongs to and does not stay in the dry lot in a fermentation pile. The microorganisms in the soil and the grass plants themselves use the manure that livestock dump on the ground and use it for their own benefits, as is always the case in nature. Even though grass-fed cattle produce more methane than grain-fed feedlot cattle, this is still outweighed by a large number of the benefits of raising grass-fed cattle. There are many naysayers, mostly animal rights advocates and the like, who say that grass-fed beef or pasture-raised cattle is the worst thing you can do for the environment, due to “emissions massive amounts of methane “and the amount of land needed to raise grass-fed cattle”; but what I see here are just excuses for these people to never change their vegan diets. Much of what they say about grass is bad for the environment is unfounded. If feeding cattle grass is so bad for the environment, why does grass grow so much healthier and lush when cattle rotate graze? Why do I see more wildlife on herding cattle than on farms that just farm? Those are just some of the questions I challenge those kinds of people to answer!
Without a doubt, there are many more benefits than I had time to list, so I leave that to you to find out for yourself.
