| By :
Tim Smith
There are several cattle feeding systems and each has their own pros and cons. For you to be able to select the right one, you must find out which would suit the needs of your cattle farming. First, get acquainted with the different styles of cattle feeding. There is the seed stock where the breeders focus mainly on developing the genetics of the cattle. There is also the cow/calf feeding where the farmers produce cows and calves for commercial purposes. The stocker/grower feeding style is where farmers feed their cattle on pasture as well as forage. And the grow yards/back grounding style of feeding focus mainly on feeding the cattle with mostly forage to light weight calves. And lastly, there is the custom/commercial finishing yards. Cattle are made to gain weight of 1000 to 1500 pounds and then they are harvested. You now have to determine why you are raising cattle so that you'll be able to decide which cattle feeding system you will use. As you probably know by now, the diet of cattle has at least some forage in it, this includes grass and silage. Most if not all cattle are actually pasture-fed from birth until seven months onward. Their diet consists of mostly grass. But as they get older, to fatten them up and increase their diet, they are fed with small amounts of hay and straw coupled with soy and other grain materials. There have been many debates as to how cattle should be fed that would also be beneficial to the society. It's up to you to choose among different systems that would fit your wants. There are three feeding systems. First would be the grazing systems. The cattle are simply grazing in pastures and grasslands with hardly any crops as part of their diet. Next there is the integrated livestock-crop farming system. Aside from pasture, the cattle's diet now includes crops or crop residues plus fallows. This is the widely used system because it is the most resourceful and is profit-oriented. The goal is to have high levels of production. And last among the cattle feeding systems is the industrial production. The cattle are fed not in land, but in feedlots, pens, and stalls. This cattle feeding system attains the highest for stocking density among the three systems. This type of system includes drugs as part of the cattle's diet, such as hormones and feed additives.
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