Low cattle-raising profits in rural areas? These common pitfalls should be avoided
At present, when raising cattle in rural areas, quite a few farmers still have many pitfalls in feeding and management. If these pitfalls are not taken seriously, they will inevitably affect further improvement of cattle-raising profits. For this reason, the author now briefly describes some of the main pitfalls in rural cattle raising as follows.
1. Single sire breed
At present, most rural cattle-raising households select sires based on the coat colour and habits of traditional cattle raising, so they relatively commonly prefer to raise Charolais cattle, while other breeds are not readily accepted by farmers. However, because Charolais has been used for progressive crossbreeding for many years, the single breed has weakened its heterosis. As a result, weight gain is slow, feed conversion is low, and cattle-raising income is small. To improve cattle-raising profits, it is necessary to change the long-standing practice of using a single sire breed for progressive crossbreeding, and actively introduce fine breeds such as Limousin and Simmental for crossbreeding.
2. Using crossbred bulls for breeding
At present, quite a few rural households still use crossbred bulls for natural mating because they lack scientific knowledge of cattle raising. A small number of households raising crossbred bulls, driven by economic interests, carry out external breeding for profit, which not only harms the interests of cattle-raising households but also interferes with the promotion and application of the new technology of frozen semen breeding.
After calves are born, supplementary feeding is insufficient, especially during the first and second winter-spring housing periods, when little or no feed supplement is given, causing severe obstruction of the growth and development of improved cattle, prolonging the finishing period, and resulting in low economic returns. Therefore, to improve cattle-raising profits, one must start with rearing calves, especially by doing a good job of supplementary feeding during the first and second winter-spring housing periods, so that they reach a body weight of more than 300 kg at 18 to 24 months of age before finishing, and short-term intensive fattening can also be adopted to finish at a body weight of more than 500 kg.
3. Feeding cattle coarse feed without processing and treatment
During the housing period, many farmers use whole corn stalks to feed cattle, so that the utilisation rate of the stalks reaches only about 30%, and most fattening households can only chop the stalks short, while new technologies for treating stalks such as silage, ammoniation and microbial fermentation are spread over a small area and in small quantities. A large number of scientific experiments have long confirmed that after scientific processing and treatment of stalks, the utilisation rate, palatability and nutritional components of the stalks are improved, and the weight-gain fattening effect can be promoted and the finishing rate accelerated. Therefore, to improve cattle-raising profits, it is necessary to carry out scientific processing and treatment of the various coarse feeds fed to cattle, and actively promote and apply new stalk processing and treatment technologies such as stalk silage, ammoniation and microbial storage.
4. Extensive management
At present, most cattle sheds of farmers raising cattle are relatively simple, and the temperature in many fattening cattle sheds is on the low side. The manure and urine discharged by cattle every day are not cleaned up in time, and most sheds are dark and damp inside. The cattle bodies are not brushed all year round, and the cattle are tied in the shed all year round without exercise or sunlight. For this reason, to make cattle gain weight quickly, have a high finishing rate and good profits, farmers raising cattle must pay attention to cattle shed construction, so that the cattle shed can be warm in winter and cool in summer, and in winter the temperature inside the shed should be kept above 5°C. The cattle shed must be cleaned of manure and urine at fixed times every day, attention must be paid to ventilation and air exchange inside the shed, the cattle bodies must be brushed every day, and the cattle must be driven outside the shed every day to get sunlight and exercise, so as to enhance the cattle's physique and disease resistance and achieve the goal of rapid fattening and weight gain.