Animal Husbandry

The growing world population is accompanied by many problems, the most important being a shortage of food materials. Scientists all over the world are engaged in finding out new methods for enhancement in food production. One focus regarding this is animal husbandry. Let us take a look.

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Animal Husbandry

It is a branch of agriculture concerned with rearing breeding and feeding animals to obtain useful products. Animals are basically reared for various products like:

• Meat- animals include cattle, Sheep, goat, etc
• Milk- animals include cows, buffaloes, camels, goats, etc
• As manual labor in farms- these include horses, bull, yaks,
• For egg- Poultry birds like hen, geese, duck, etc

Browse more Topics under Strategies For Enhancement In Food Production

• Plant Breeding
• SCP and Tissue Culture

Management of Farm and Farm animals

1. Dairy Farm Management

Most common diary animals include cows buffaloes sheep and goat. Milk and Milk products rich in fat, protein, carbohydrate, vitamin A, B, D and E, Minerals like calcium and phosphorous. Certain points to be taken care of a dairy farm.

• Good breeds of an animal should be selected as quality and quantity of product depends upon the breed of the animal.
• An animal must be housed well and fed properly.
• Good sanitary conditions and hygienic environment is to be maintained in the cattle farms as well as the milking areas.
• Hygiene of cattle handlers is also as important.
• Cattle should be vaccinated against diseases and regular check-up should be maintained.

2. Poultry Farm Management

Management includes the domestication of birds like hens, turkey, geese, duck, etc. They are reared for high-quality meat and eggs. Management of poultry includes proper cleaning and maintaining proper hygienic conditions in the cages.

Animal breeding

An important part of animal husbandry is the breeding of animals. Breeding is the crossing of two animals to improve the desirable qualities by choosing two animals having better traits. A group of animals related by descent and similar in most characters such as general appearance, features, size, etc.

Aims of breeding

• To increase the yield of animals.
• To improve desirable qualities in a produce.

Types of Breeding

Inbreeding

In animal husbandry, the mating of more closely related individuals of the same breed for four generations is known as inbreeding. Superior females and superior males of closely related individuals are identified and mated. The outcomes of inbreeding are as follows

• Develops homozygous pure lines of the animal.
• Exposes recessive genes for undesirable characters which may be eliminated.
• Leads to accumulation superior genes and elimination of undesirable genes.
• Continued inbreeding leads to reduced fertility and productivity of the animal. This is called inbreeding depression. It can be overcome by mating the animal with an unrelated superior animal of the same breed.

Outbreeding

Animals of different breeds are crossed it is called outbreeding. It includes out-crossing, cross-breeding, and interspecific hybridization.

• Out-crossing: It is the mating between animals of the same breed, but not having common ancestors for 4 − 5 generations. It is usually used for animals, which have below average productivity and growth rate. It helps to overcome inbreeding depression
• Cross-breeding: It is the mating between a superior male of one breed with a superior female of another breed. Superior qualities of both the breeds combine and this is known as hybrid vigour. The progeny so formed is called a hybrid. A hybrid may be used as it is or may be further subjected to inbreeding. Example: Hisardale sheep is a hybrid of Bikaneri ewes and Marino rams.
• Interspecific Hybridization: Males and females of different, but related species are mated. Progeny has desirable features of both the species. Example − Mule is an interspecific hybrid of donkey and horse. It is swifter and stronger than donkeys and more disease resistant than a horse.

Controlled Breeding Techniques

1. Artificial Insemination

Semen is collected from the male and injected into the reproductive tract of the female. Semen can be frozen for later use or used immediately.

2. Multiple Ovulation Embryo Transfer (MOET) Technology

The cow is administered with an FSH-like hormone, which induces follicular maturity and superovulation. In superovulation, instead of one egg/cycle, 6 − 8 eggs are produced per cycle. The cow is either naturally mated with a superior bull or artificially inseminated. A fertilized egg is recovered at 8 − 32 cell stages non-surgically and transferred to a surrogate mother.

The genetic mother is again available for another cycle of superovulation. Using this technique, high milk-yielding breeds of females and lean meat-yielding bulls have been bred successfully.

Apiculture

Another form of animal husbandry is apiculture. Apiculture is the practice of bee-keeping. It includes maintenance of beehives for the production of honey. Honey is a very useful product with varied uses. It has a high nutritive value and medicinal value. Honeybees also produce beeswax that is used in the preparation of polishes and cosmetics.

Most commonly reared species of the honeybee is Apis Indica. Bee-keeping is not labour intensive. It is relatively easy but requires some specialized knowledge about –

• nature and habits of bees
• selection of a suitable location for keeping beehives. Proper care should be taken while selecting the place for bee farm it should be close to fruit orchards or cultivating farms for the availability of nectar. This is called the pasturage.
• catching and hiving of swarms.
• beehive management during different seasons.
• handling and collection of honey and beeswax.

Fisheries

Include catching, processing, and selling of fishes, shellfishes, and other aquatic animals (prawn, crab, lobster, etc.)

• Capture fishery- Catching fishes from natural water sources like oceans Seas rivers
• Culture fishery- fishes are cultured in ponds and collected water.
• Mariculture – Culturing of marine fishes like Hilsa, pomfrets, and sardines
• Aquaculture– Culturing of freshwater fishes like Catla and Rohu

The fisheries industry is flourishing in our country and ‘Blue Revolution’ is on the verge of being implemented.

Solved Question for You

Q. Interspecific crosses are rare in nature and intergeneric crosses almost unknown. Why?

Ans. Interbreeding is a major criterion for members of any species. If two individuals cannot breed, they cannot be termed to belong to the same species. Hence, interspecific crosses are rare in nature. Some logic applies to intergeneric crosses.

The main reason lies in the difference in the number of chromosomes in the cells of different organisms. Due to this, a viable zygote cannot be formed by two gametes having different numbers of chromosomes. But artificial hybridization is being frequently used to produce interspecific and intergeneric crosses; especially for producing better varieties of plants.