Animal Production Resources
-
Georgia poultry farmers are among the best in the world at growing chickens using state of the art technology, housing systems, and best management practices. To protect this vital business for Georgia farmers, it is important that agricultural zoning ordinances be prudently devised and factually based.
|
-
Properly composted poultry litter—manure mixed with bedding material, such as pine shavings—is a valuable soil amendment. However, it takes care and management to compost the litter from poultry housing environments. This resource provides chicken owners with the information they need to compost their chickens’ litter properly to make a useful end product.
|
-
One of the most important components of a zoning ordinance for poultry farms relates to the set-back distance required for the location of poultry production houses. It is important that set-back requirements for poultry houses be based on facts rather than emotions.
|
-
One of the greatest risks cattle producers face is price risk. Price changes can come in the form of declining cattle prices for sellers, increasing cattle prices for buyers or increasing feed prices for feed users. Because of this risk, producers might want to “insure” feeder cattle, fed cattle or feed against unfavorable price movements, while still being able to take advantage of favorable price movements. Cattlemen have this opportunity by using the commodity options market.
|
-
This expert resource provides information on raising a small flock of chickens (50 or less) for meat and eggs (either for hatching or eating).
|
-
Mastitis continues to be a major livestock disease afflicting the U.S. dairy industry. As the industry strives to improve milk quality to meet consumer as well as exportation demands, the legal limit for bulk tank sec will likely be reduced from 750,000/ml to 400,000/ml in the near future. It is estimated that between 10 and 20% of US dairy farms, mostly located in the Southeast, are currently at or above the 400,000/ml SCC limit and will have to adopt stricter methods for controlling mastitis in their milking herds, dry cows, and heifers.
This publication reviews the survey results of adoption rates for mastitis control measures and shows that there is much room for improvement.
|
-
Prevalence of mastitis in unbred, breeding-age and pregnant dairy heifers is higher than formerly realized. Infected mammary quarters exhibit reduced mammary gland secretory potential, marked leukocyte infiltration and the accompanying inflammation. Both nonlactating and lactating commercial antibiotic infusion products have been used successfully to cure existing infections and reduce SCC, and nonlactating therapy prevents new IMI with environmental streptococci. However, the goal is to prevent new infections from occurring in these young dairy animals through management strategies aimed at vaccination, use of teat seals, fly control and dietary supplementation. Not only do these practices reduce new infections in first-calf heifers at parturition, they also reduce the introduction of Staph. aureus to the milking herd.
|
-
This resource helps poultry producers calibrate manure spreaders (rear discharge, twin spinner) commonly used in poultry litter application in the Southeast.
|
-
Cattle producers commonly evaluate reproductive performance by determining how many cows became pregnant during the breeding season. Although pregnancy rates are important, when the females become pregnant within the breeding season is a major component of cow-calf profitability. Cows that become pregnant early in the breeding season calve earlier in the calving season. Consequently, they have more time to recover before the next breeding season, which increases their chances of becoming pregnant and staying longer in the herd. Estrus synchronization programs have the ability of inducing estrus and can be combined with natural service to increase the percentage of cows and heifers that become pregnant early in the season. This publication describe different synchronization protocols that can be incorporated by cow-calf producers utilizing only natural service.
|