Common Terms Used in Animal

Husbandry
Animal Husbandry
Common Terms Used in Animal Husbandry

• Livestock: Livestock are domesticated animals

raised in an agricultural setting to produce
commodities such as food, fiber and labor.

•
Monogestric and polygestric animals
 Breeds
• A breed is a specific group of domestic animals having homogeneous appearance
(phenotype), homogeneous behavior, and/or other characteristics that distinguish
it from other organisms of the same species and that were arrived at
through selective breeding.
• CASTRATION: Surgical, chemical or any other method by which
a male loses the functions of the testicles or a female loses the
functions of the ovaries.
• COLOSTRUM: Colostrum is the first lacteal secretion produced
by the mammary gland of a mother prior to the production of
milk.
• FLUSHING: It is referred as placing of animals (e.g. ewes and
does) on high level of nutrition two to three weeks before
mating. As a result animals look glowing and healthy.
• GAG: A gag is usually a device designed to keep jaws apart at the time of
examination of mouth. It is an attempt to prevent the tongue lips, or jaw
from moving in the normal patterns.
• GESTATION: Gestation is the carrying of an embryo or fetus inside a
female animal from the time of conception till the birth. The time interval
of a gestation is called gestation period.
• HOBBLE: To walk or move along haltingly or with difficulty. To put a device
around the legs of animals so as to hamper but not prevent movement.
• MECONIUM : A dark green fecal material that accumulates in the fetal
intestines and is discharged at or near the time of birth.
• TWITCH: To draw, pull, or move suddenly and sharply.
• CULLING: It is the process of removing breeding
animals from a group based on specific criteria.
• This is done either to reinforce certain desirable
characteristics or to remove certain undesirable
characteristics from the group.
• DAM : The female parent of an animal, especially of a
domestic animal.
• RESIDUAL MILK: About 15-25% of the total amount of
milk in the udder at the start of milking is not
removed during milking. This milk is referred to as
residual milk. Residual milk is also called
complementary milk.
• DRY PERIOD: The period during the lactation cycle
when the cow is not lactating, i.e. the period between
the end of one lactation and the beginning of the
next.
 Fodder
• Fodder or animal feed is any agricultural
foodstuff used specifically to feed
domesticated livestock, such as cattle, goats,
sheep, horses, chickens.
• Forage: Forage is plant material (mainly plant leaves
and stems) eaten by grazing livestock. Historically,
the term forage has meant only plants eaten by the
animals directly as pasture, crop residue, or
immature cereal crops but they may be converted
into hay and silage
 Fodder
• Roughages : Roughages are bulky feeds that
are characterized by being high in fiber and
low in energy.
 Fodder
• Concentrates: , high in energy value, including fat, cereal
grains and their by-products (barley, corn, oats, rye, wheat),
high-protein oil meals or cakes (soybean, canola, cottonseed,
peanut [groundnut]), and by-products from processing of
sugar beets, sugarcane, animals, and fish
Common Fodder in Pakistan
 Fodder
• Conserved forage plants: hay and silage
• Compound feed and premixes, often called pellets, nuts or (cattle) cake
• Crop residues: stover, copra, straw, chaff, sugar beet waste
• Fish meal
• Freshly cut grass and other forage plants
• Meat and bone meal (now illegal in cattle and sheep feeds in many areas
due to risk of BSE)
• Molasses
• Seeds and grains, either whole or prepared by crushing, milling, etc.
• Sprouted grains and legumes
• Native green grass
• Bran
• Concentrate mix
• Oilseed press cake (cottonseed, safflower, sunflower, soybean, peanut or
groundnut)
• Green maize
• Green sorghum
• Horse gram
Non Traditional Fodder
Silage Making
Silage Making
Hay Making
 Feeding of cattle
• Stall Feeding / Zero grazing : Under the zero-grazing
system, cattle are confined in one place where feed and water
are brought to the animals. Other animal husbandry activities
such as animal health, are also carried out under zero grazing.
• Part time Grazing: In this system of grazing, grasses are
not enough and not fulfill animal feed requirement therefore,
Usually Animals are grazed for sometime and they are also
stall fed to fulfill dietary requirements.
• Full Grazing
• Strip Grazing: A grazing system e.g. for CATTLE in which the
animals are given access to a limited area of fresh PASTURE up
to twice daily by means of a movable fence. Grazed strips are
“backfenced”
• to allow for regrowth
• of the grass.
 Life cycle of a calf
• Calf : Day 0_1 year
• Heifer: 1 year__ till second parturition
• Dam: Female mother
Stages in Life of a cow
Life cycle of a calf
Lactation cycle