Horses are frequently housed in facilities that are often designed more for the comfort of the horse owner than for the horse. Horse housing is notoriously poorly ventilated to the point of being air-tight in some cases, and the horses are subjected to breathing poor-quality air. Hence, emphases should be placed on high-quality, dust-free, mold-free hay or cubed or pelleted forage or forage/grain combinations. Fear of fecal contamination of hay and/or grain with the causative organism for equine protozoal myelitis has prompted some horse farm managers to feed all forages and concentrates entirely as bagged cubes, pellets or texturized feeds. The fear of feeding hay and grains from bulk storage may decrease as an effective vaccine is developed for this disease.
May 02 2008 | Article | No Comments »
How to Build Animal Housing: 60 Plans for Coops, Hutches, Barns, Sheds, Pens, Nestboxes, Feeders, Stanchions, and Much More
By Carol Ekarius
Book Description
Cows and horses, donkeys and mules, sheep and goats, pigs and fowl, even llamas are living on small farms and in backyard barnyards throughout the United States. But how and where are these critters being housed?
Author Carol Ekarius knows. In How to Build Animal Housing, she provides dozens of plans–with illustrated, step-by-step instructions–for species-specific shelters that are well ventilated, safe, appropriate for the animals, appealing, convenient, and a solid value for their owners.
The book is essential reading for anyone interested in animal health and welfare. It includes complete plans and step-by-step, illustrated instructions for sheds, coops, hutches, multipurpose barns, and economical easy-to-build windbreaks and shade structures. Ekarius covers new high-tech, portable structures made of plastics and fabrics, such as hoop houses and hen spas, as well as more traditional alternatives, such as straw-bale structures. Always practical, she enumerates the advantages and disadvantages of ready-to-build kits and modular barnyard buildings and includes designs for watering systems, feeders, chutes, stanchions, and more–the essentials that help owners keep their animals healthy and happy.
Ekarius wisely emphasizes the importance of careful planning, choosing an appropriate housing site, and complying with local zoning regulations; pest control, basic housing maintenance, and insurance costs are also discussed. Real-world advice from farmers and veterinarians on the types of housing and facilities animals like best enliven the text throughout.
How to Build Animal Housing is the most comprehensive and useful guide of its kind. For small-scale farmers, hobby farmers, do-it-yourselfers, and animal lovers, this book is indispensable.
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May 01 2008 | Books | No Comments »
In general, birds over-consume energy with higher-energy diets, and they will have difficulty maintaining normal energy intake when diets of less than 2,600 kcal ME/kg are offered. In most instances, underconsumption rather than overconsumption is the problem, and so use of higher-energy diets during situations such as heat stress may help to minimize energy insufficiency.
The majority of the world’s laying hens are kept in locations where heat stress is likely to be a major concern at some stage during the production cycle. The problem relates to birds not consuming enough feed at this time, although there are also some subtle changes in the bird’s metabolism that affect both production and shell quality. The key to sustaining production in hot climates is to maintain a positive energy balance. This may involve the use of higher nutrient-dense diets, greater use of fat and synthetic amino acids, texturing of diets, more frequent feeding and perhaps midnight feeding.
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April 30 2008 | Poultry | No Comments »