What are the common problems with growing grass to raise sheep? A detailed explanation in one article

Raising sheep is currently the first choice for many farmers, but a very realistic problem now lies before everyone: ordinary places are not suitable for large-scale farming, so what can be done? Growing your own grass to raise sheep has become a breakthrough point. So what problems will you encounter if you grow your own grass to raise sheep? Let's learn about them together with Qinnong Network.

1. Yield size

Yield is the thing most people planning to grow grass for farming worry about the most. In fact, the claims of those forage grasses you usually see producing over ten tons per mu, or even several dozen tons in exaggerated cases, are highly suspect. Reaching over ten tons requires absolutely very good planting land, and using such good land to grow other cash crops would be far more worthwhile than growing forage grass. Forage grass grown on normal land reaching 10 tons is already very good, and this is still fresh forage grass; once dried it is only about 4 tons. In generally poorer land, the yield is even lower. So the yield from growing your own forage grass is not as economical and practical as everyone thinks.

2. Labor cost

The level of labor cost is the most direct comparison between growing your own forage grass and buying forage grass. At present, the labor cost of growing your own forage grass seems a bit high. Generally, when growing your own forage grass, the area first cannot be too small, because too small wastes time; second, management after planting requires a great deal of time, and together with the effects of some fertilizers and pests, the cost is even higher. The cost required for one mu of grassland is close to 1,000 yuan. Compared with buying forage grass yourself, changing the land used for growing forage grass to growing cash crops would seem to be more economical.

3. Planting returns

Sheep raising in our country is done on a large scale. In the north it is better, as the land is relatively flat and fertile, so planting returns are relatively higher. In the south, however, most areas show a non-flat distribution, and the soil is relatively more barren, so returns are lower. If one mu of forage grass in the north yields 10 tons, then in the south it is only about 9 tons. Normally one sheep consumes about 0.6 tons of forage per year, and one mu of land can roughly sustain the consumption of about 6 sheep. If instead you grow cash crops and buy forage, then it can support more than 10 sheep. So the returns from forage grass planting are also a big problem at present.

4. Storage problems

Finally, there is the problem of forage storage. Growing your own grass to raise sheep will produce this problem: a serious shortage of forage in the early stage, and inconvenient forage storage in the later stage. After all, once the forage matures it must also be harvested in time, otherwise it will rot. So how should so much forage be stored? After all, forage grass generally has to be dried before storage; if ensiled, it very easily spoils, and drying also requires a large area, and drying is a time-consuming and labor-intensive job. Daily warehouse management must also be done well to prevent water leakage from damaging the forage grass.

The above are the various issues to consider when growing your own forage grass. Everyone had better first think through how to solve these things before growing grass to raise sheep. Compared with buying forage grass to raise sheep, the advantage is that you do not have to worry about forage supply running short; the disadvantage is that it is time-consuming and labor-intensive and may not necessarily save much capital, and may even cost more. So everyone must consider it clearly.