How to Take Care of Farm Animals

Planning and design are needed to create an optimal farm environment for livestock. Your animals' well-being is everything on your farm, and profitability is built on how well you treat your livestock. In this guide on how to care for farm animals, we look at the essentials to keeping your livestock comfortable and content. It requires daily work to ensure proper treatment and healthy animals.

Discover how to take care of farm animals.

Provide Shade Outdoors

Farm animals spend most of their lives outdoors, living, breathing, and eating. However, the weather can get hot. Ensure shaded areas let your animals casually rest and enjoy the outdoors without contending with the hot sun. Metal roofs, a barn, and large trees all serve this purpose.

Use a Barn Curtain

When a barn's windows and doors are closed, there is no fresh air, and ventilation is key for your animals. A barn curtain allows more ventilation, insulation, and lighting control than wood or metal. This helps to carry more fresh air in and remove foul urine, manure, or dusty bedding smells.

Large Stalls for Movement

The stalls you put your animals in should be large enough for them to move around in and get up and down comfortably. A smaller space will mean cramped movement. A larger space will mean more bedding and a bigger area to clean. A correctly sized stall, however, is more than enough to care for and keep livestock happy.

Optimal Food Intake

Farm animals have their own diet. You must ensure your animals receive the correct quantity of food, fed in the recommended manner, and with premium-quality ingredients. Certain feeding processes achieve better results than others. Milk cows, for example, are fed differently than beef cattle whose needs include a higher nutrient count and more fats.

Automatic Waterers

Along with food, animals need lots of water to stay hydrated. Automatic or heated waterer offers fresh water year-round. Some models even come with meters to tell you precisely how much water is consumed. Others have shut-off mechanisms for above-average water intake.

Track Development

Track your farm animals' growth and ensure they are developing as recommended. There may be specific areas to focus on or aspects of their health to investigate. A vet can shed light on what to expect from an animal's growth and evolution. A lot of online research provides insight into farm animal care.

Clean Manure Daily

The average horse creates four to five tons of manure every year. Add to that another six to seven tons of soiled bedding, and you will have a lot of waste to remove from stalls. This should be done every day. It's imperative to keep your livestock's surroundings clean and tidy. This is done by eliminating waste and odours that can linger if waste is not taken care of in a timely manner.

Let Them Free-Roam

Animals in confined spaces or locked in breed stress, negatively impacting their health. However, you define productivity for your farm, and you won't optimize it with animals constantly in confined spaces. Let them free-roam. An animal that can move freely is happy, enhancing its quality of life.

Safe Barn Floors

Your choice of stall flooring matters to your animal. Ensure it is non-skid and non-slip, retains as little odor as possible, and is easy to clean. Mats for floors may be the easiest and most affordable option. They are easy to clean and can add friction to an otherwise slippery surface. The last thing you want is an animal to slip and injure itself.

Never Miss a Cleaning

Weather, climate, and natural elements can interfere with an animal's safety and security. It can create mud, breed bacteria, and more. This is why it's so important to clean regularly. Missing even a cleaning or two can harm animal health. Always work to keep the living environment dry and equipped with fresh water and sufficient food.

Reduce Fire Hazards

Barns have multiple fire hazards. It's easy to overload outlets or circuit breakers. Lightning can strike. Hay and bedding are highly flammable in heat. Exposed wires can spark. Etc. Ensure you do what you can to reduce the likelihood of a fire by upgrading your electrical. In addition, avoid storing hay or bedding inside the same barn as your animals if possible.