COMPARING THE FIVE BEST BACKYARD ANIMALS
(Page 7 of 8)
As you can see, them, basic good husbandry practices—taking advantage of the critter's natural cycles, and selecting and keeping the best "doers" while culling the "do-nothings"—can double the costeffectiveness of our rabbitry.
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BUYING YOUR ANIMALS
When looking at the price tag of any livestock, you'll need to consider the potential return on your investment . . . that is, how much meat, milk, eggs, or other products you'll be able to harvest for the amount of cash, food, and labor put into raising the animal.
Four basic factors will help you estimate an animal's cast in relation to its productivity: quality, age, pedigree, and popularity.
QUALITY
The best way to evaluate an animal's quality is by its post production records. However, not everyone keeps accurate livestock records and young animals won't have any records, of course . . . so you'll have to learn how to distinguish (using your eyeballs and fingertips) the likely producers from the do-nothings.
All animal breeds have established standards of perfection" that describe a quality specimen. The closer an animal is to the breed's standard, the better its production is likely to be. Perhaps the best place to learn haze to recognise such criteria is at the county fair. You can get a lot of practice there by matching your "winning" choices against the judge's decisions.
AGE
The price of any homestead livestock creature should reflect its age and its remaining years of productivity. For example, a one-year-old milk goat that's just beginning her production years should be worth more than a doe that's six or eight years old and starting to decline. (Actually, a two-year-old doe with a year of good production records will be the nasal expensive investment, because such a female is both young and proven.)
PEDIGREE
Family background will help you predict how well a critter r evil! produce, because chances are an animal from high-producing parents will follow the pattern. But good heritage doesn't guarantee good results . . . there are some "black sheep" (nanproducers) in every family.
Special terms are used to describe pedigree. A crossbred critter is an animal of unknown parentage or one whose parents are of different breeds. (Shepherds sometimes call crossbred sheep commercials and goat raisers often refer to such kids as grades.) If an animal boasts parents of the same breed, it is known as purebred. Most commercial livestock raisers, though, insist that the parents and grandparents all be of the same breed before they'll dub a youngster a purebred. What's more, owners who cart prove that their animals hove been pure for five generations or more usually list them in a breed club registry. Animals so honored are said to he registered.
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