Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure
7.17.
Milk production in regions of the world. (From Global Livestock Production and
Health Atlas, 2006, FAO.)
family farmer. In addition, buffalo cows can do this while eating the poorest quality
fodder. Most small farmers will feed buffaloes crop residue or pasture them on road-
sides. Most dietary requirements of buffalo are similar to a cow except that a buffalo
can utilize poor-quality forage more efficiently. Experiments in Thailand showed that
buffalo cows will produce 2 kg of milk per day when fed rice straw.
20
A full-grown
Holstein cow would slowly starve on the same diet.
Buffalo milk is higher in fat than cow milk. Because of this, it is preferred for
making mozarella cheese. Buffalo cows will produce milk for 250 to 290 days after
calving, nearly as long as Holstein cows. Some breeds will produce as much as 7 kg
milk per day.
Cattle fed for meat purposes receive significantly different feed than milk cows.
The young calf is weaned from the mother at 6 to 8 months of age when it weighs
225 to 275 kg. Male calves are typically castrated to increase weight gain. These
animals are called steers. The calves (or steers) are then fed on pasture until they
weigh about 350 kg. The time period needed to reach this weight depends on the
quality of forage consumed. When this weight is reached, they may be switched to a
more nutrient-rich diet containing grains such as maize, wheat, sorghum, soybeans,
and barley. A wide variety of other feed sources are used, such as distiller's grains,
soybean hulls, citrus pulp, and other waste products of the food-processing industry.
A steer fed on concentrates will typically gain about 1 to 1.5 kg per day under
feedlot conditions. When the animals reach a weight of 500 to 600 kg, they are
ready for market.
Landless intensive beef systems will purchase animals at the 350-kg weight (called
stocker calves) and feed them until ready for market. Usually these operations are the
stereotypical feedlots producing thousands of animals each month. An alternate pro-
duction system is extensive pasture-fed cattle as in Argentina, southern Brazil, and
northeast Mexico. Relatively little beef is produced in mixed farming systems in devel-
oping countries. This is due to the traditional separation between pastoralists and settled
