Factors influencing livestock production Scorching • Hot and Dry
• Avg temp > 32 C
Introduction • Semi-arid/Arid
Factors: Something contributing to a result • Low rainfall
Influencing: Capacity to have an effect • Sparse growth
Livestock production: Raising of animal use Muggy • Warm and Wet
• Avg temp 18 – 35 C
• Humidity <65%
Animal Ecology • Sup-tropical and tropical
Raw • Cold and Wet
• The science which explains the interaction between the animal • Avg temp 18 – 28 C
and its total environment. • Humidity >65%
• Livestock production: essential to have a clear concept of how • Good for crops and pasture
each environmental factor influences the animal and how we • Little climatic stress in animals
can breed animals to be better adapted to any environment. Keen • Cold and Dry
• Avg temp <18 C
• Antagonistic to plant and animal life
4 Climatic Regions
Case Study:
• Alpine pastures in Switzerland are in a high-altitude raw
environment.
• Found in parts of Europe, South America, North America and
Humidity
Europe.
• Pasture growth is very slow, the pastures are very succulent; are
low in crude fibre and are high in protein.
• Environment which is very favourable to livestock production.
Jan Bonsma
Temperature “People are the most environmental factor. People can, within limits,
modify certain external environmental factors by breeding, selection
, and modification of the environment, breed animals which are highly Nutrition • Biochemical and physiological process by
productive and well adapted to a particular region.” which an organism uses food to support its
life.
- Nutrition and metabolism affect the
Bonsma’s Wheel transformation of food into products.
- Quantity & quality of feed produced is
Overview: environmentally regions which produce feed, of
the same nutritional value, and no 2 animals
• Born in 1909 in SA.
respond exactly to the same on feed.
• BSc (Animal Science) from UP in 1931 - Ability to asses nutritional status of a particular
• Led massive research program in 1937 at the Department of region and to exploit animal adaptability means
Agriculture’s Mara Research Station (Limpopo) for 23 years we can produce livestock where previously not
• Mission was to solve SA’s cattle industry problem possible.
o Afrikaner needed improvement to reach the commercial Rainfall & Temperature
production of other breeds Humidity • Muggy climate
o European cattle were imported but couldn’t survive in • High rainfall causes soil nutrients to wash
environment away.
• After decades of research & experimentation, developed a • This creates highly acidic soil = less
new breed: Bonsmara (1970) nutritious pasture (low amino acids)
• Cattle are smaller because they receive less
nutrients (AA’s are essential for growth)
Humidity
• High = animal gets warm.
• Smaller cattle able to tolerate heat stress,
more challenging for larger breeds.
Soil • Acidic soils: less plant growth due to major
Fertility nutrient deficiencies.
• Alkaline soils: only deficient in trace
elements and so it is easily supplemented.
How this affects the type of breeds
• High rainfall → soil washed away → less
amino acids → major nutrient deficiencies in
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