Sheep
This implies how long ruminant animals can live before they die naturally. Well, being food animals, it is difficult to predict this because almost all of the time they are not allowed to reach its full age before they are being slaughtered. Therefore, knowing their life span may be difficult. However, I have seen sheep and Goat of five years and Cattle of fifteen years before. See also: Goats eating Nylon and What you should do
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Of recent I got a question from a ruminant farmer that says “I discovered that my Goat ate a lot of nylon and is now very sick. What can I do? Well most of the time, animals that eat nylon usually die. The only option is surgery with which the nylon can be brought out of the animal. The reason why most farmers hardly do this is because of the cost of surgical operation most of the time higher than the cost of the animal itself. Lolz! However, if the…
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There are many signs that may show that an animal is poisoned. These signs depend on the type of poison and the extend of poisoning. In severe cases, the animal may just die suddenly without any previous sign. At other times, the animal may how in like vomiting, diarrhea, and may foam before eventually death if left unattended to. How to tackle it: This depends on the nearness of your consultant. If he/she is very near, you can call on the person for an appropriate attention. However, some first aids…
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Benefits of Castration: First and foremost, let us start by discussing the benefits of castrating your male ruminant animals. There are two major reasons why castration is done: First is to prevent the male from involving in mating activities with the female and secondly, to make the animal get fattened up on time. It is beneficial because the castrated male animal will then make use of all of its energy on building muscles and not for sexual activities which is a plus in fattening also, in case a male animal…
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Most of the time when this occurs, it is either that the foetus is too being to pass through the vagina of the female or that the female has a small genital opening that the foetus cannot pass through It is also possible that the foetus presented a wrong position and posture e.g. if the foetus tries to come out through the leg and one is still inside while the other is outside. All of these will make it either difficult or impossible for the female to deliver on its…
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There are lots of things that may be responsible for this regular issue of people complaining that they do see a lot of dead pregnant sheep along the road-side. It may be due to road accident which is common to sheep and goat raised in an extensive system. Another common cause is what is known as “pregnancy toxaemia” of sheep which refers to the state whereby the sheep is stressed during pregnancy. Lowered level of glucose at this stage will cause pregnancy toxaemia which does result in the death of…
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The causes of wounds in the body of ruminant animals are many: First, it can occur as a result of fighting among themselves during which they can injure one another with their horns. Second, heavy tick infestation can result in wounds especially on the site of attachment of the ticks. Third, wounds do result in the course of grazing especially when the animals are allowed to pass through with thick forest where trees and shrubs can injure the animals. Fourth, wounds can result from physical attack on the ruminant animals…
Read More As a beginner, there are most times many questions you may wish to ask concerning your ruminant animals and am sure that a question like this one: how do I know when my ruminants are suffering from worm infestation must be one of them. Secondly, you may also wish to know the signs and symptoms and how to go about their treatment. Don’t worry as we are going to discuss all that below: There are many signs that can indicate worm infestation in ruminants and these include: Loss of weight…
Read More Most times, Ruminant farmers ask questions like: is there any drug that one can give ruminant animals for them to develop faster? Hmm! Well the truth of the matter is that I will not like to recommend muscle building drugs for your animals because it also has a lot of side effects. Rather, to fatten up your ruminant animals, they need well concentrated feeds, regular deworming and adequate disease prevention and treatment. Am sure that if all of these are in place, your ruminant animals will be free of diseases…
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Ruminant farmers usually raise questions like where is one supposed to put their drugs, is it in their feeds or water? This is a very simple question for most ruminant farmers how are aware of the answer and at the same time a very difficult question for those that are not aware of the answer. Normally, this depends on the route of administration of the drugs and they are usually stated on the drugs to be used. If the drug is an oral drug, definitely it will be given to…
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