How many hectares of pasture is needed to graze one cow and how to organize

How much milk does a Simmental cow produce?

After the first calving, a Simmental cow gives 15-18 liters of milk per day, after the fifth - up to 25 liters. During lactation – up to 4.7 tons. The fat content in the milk of first-calf heifers reaches 4.1%, and with age it drops to 3.9%. Among the livestock there are individuals that produce milk with a fat content of up to 6%.

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Article 9

5. Information about land plots located on the territory of the municipality and proposed to be provided to citizens for grazing and haymaking under certain conditions is published within a prescribed period in the media, determined by the list approved by the highest executive body of state power of the Krasnodar Territory.

8. A lease agreement for a land plot with a plurality of persons on the lessee’s side may contain a condition on the consent of the parties to the entry into this agreement of other citizens interested in providing the land plot for grazing livestock, as well as the possibility of exit from such an agreement by citizens acting on the lessee’s side.

Land for grazing and haymaking can be given on the basis of a lease agreement to either one person or a group of people. If we consider the last case of an agreement with a plurality of citizens, then such a condition must be fulfilled as compliance with the standards for the allocation of territories for grazing and haymaking, taking into account the number of heads of livestock that belong to the property of citizens. A lease agreement with a group of citizens in the form of a tenant may also include a condition that the parties agree to include in the agreement other persons interested in the land allotment for grazing.

How can you manage and what operations can be carried out on plots for grazing? In addition to the immediate intended use, it is allowed to build temporary buildings for pens and so on. However, when the rights to a given land plot cease, such a structure will need to be demolished at the expense of the one who built it and without compensation. As for the lease terms, the law establishes the maximum possible lease term at 3 years.

Does the State Give Land for Pasture?

Thus, judging by numerous legislative formulations, it can be said that there is no prohibition on the construction of buildings, structures and structures on agricultural land. The main condition here is the registration of a peasant farm.

1. Land plots in state or municipal ownership are provided to citizens for grazing and haymaking in the manner established by the Land Code of the Russian Federation, the Federal Law “On the Turnover of Agricultural Lands”, this Law, other regulatory legal acts of the Russian Federation and regulatory legal acts of the Krasnodar Territory regulating legal relations regarding the provision of land plots for these purposes.

Changes of this nature are considered unauthorized and are subject to administrative liability. Thus, if a plot of land was leased for livestock farming, residential buildings cannot be erected on it, even if this right is provided for in the contract.

If an agreement is signed between the parties that does not indicate the duration of the lease, then such an agreement will be considered unlimited, but valid within the legally permissible time frame - that is, it does not exceed 49 years, but not less than 3 years.

Description of appearance

The cow is a rather large animal. Its height at the withers can reach 1.5 m. A cow weighs on average 0.75 tons. But there are both species weighing 147 kg and individuals weighing 1.3 tons.

The cow's body is large and elongated, its back is characteristically concave. The pelvis is visibly prominent, the hip bones are flattened. The tail is distinguished by a rather long length, elasticity and a tassel at the end.

The cow's neck is massive, but short. The head is large, the frontal part is flat and wide, with thick curly hair. Many species of cows have horns on their heads, the length of which is influenced by the species they belong to.

The eyes of these animals are large, the pupil in them is located horizontally. The cow has a lateral monocular type of vision. She uses central binocular vision to perceive color. These animals perfectly notice any movement.

Cows' ears are small, horn-shaped, and mobile. On their inner side there is long and dense hair, and the outer side is covered with thin hairs. The cow has excellent hearing.

This animal also has a well-developed sense of smell and taste.

The cow is a herbivore. Its teeth are anatomically designed in such a way that they can chew different types of plants. The number of teeth depends on the age of the cow. A young animal has 20 teeth, a mature one - 32.

Cows have mammary glands (udders) consisting of 2 parts, forming two quarters. Each part has a five or ten centimeter nipple, the thickness of which is no more than 3 cm.

The cow is a short-haired mammal; the color of its coat can be different: white or black, brown or red. The color can be one color or spotted.

Cows are herd animals. A special hierarchical order is established within the herd. Cows communicate through smells, mooing, nodding and special head movements.

Cows live on average 20 years, some animals live up to 35.

Cows develop quite quickly physically. They grow up to 5 years, in some breeds growth continues up to 7 years. Puberty occurs at 7-9 months. It is believed that an animal is ready to bear offspring when its weight reaches 60% of the weight of a mature cow.

The sexual cycle lasts 21 days. There may be free or manual mating. The calf is gestated for approximately 285 days. Usually only one calf is born, rarely two. Calf weight 18-45 kg.

Milk appears immediately after calving. Up to three months, the calf feeds on its mother’s milk.

With systematic milking, a cow can produce milk for 11 months. Next you need two months of dead wood. The animal can then be fertilized again.

Where to start growing

Most often, for home keeping, breeders choose the stall-pasture method, which involves summer grazing of cows. In winter, the cattle are kept in barns on autonomous feeding.

Premises - barn, barn, barn

Having a well-equipped premises is one of the conditions for successful livestock farming. As a cowshed, it is enough to equip a wooden barn, in which you will need to insulate the walls, floor and roof, as well as install ventilation. It is important to make the floor at an angle for more convenient cleaning and hygiene procedures. It can be made from earth or wood. Inside it is necessary to install wooden trough-shaped feeders and drinking bowls. The containers must contain at least twenty kilograms of feed for each head.

Read about the barn for cows in this material.

Optimal conditions - microclimate, ventilation, cleaning

The most important conditions for keeping cows are clean, dry and warm barns. The recommended air temperature in winter is at least ten degrees Celsius (for calves it should be higher). If necessary, a heating system can be installed to maintain it. Cleaning of barns and walking areas must be done daily, replacing the bedding (straw or sawdust). It is also important to clean and wash the feeders.

Cattle housing systems

In the summer, cows kept in both tethered and loose housing should be on pastures, and in their absence, receive green feeding.

Before the start of the grazing period, animals are examined to identify various diseases, hooves and horn tips are trimmed and trimmed. Much work is being done to prepare pastures and runs. Repairing fences and clearing pastures of debris. Particular attention should be paid to the runs. They must provide quiet and safe passage for livestock. If there are holes, ruts, or sharp objects on the runs, the cows will injure the udder, and bruises and broken limbs are possible. The distance to pastures should be no more than 3 km. Under no circumstances should cows be pushed, since by their physiological nature they are not adapted to fast movement. The size of the herd should not exceed 200 heads.

The most rational way to use pastures is to divide the pasture into paddocks.

The total duration of grazing should be no more than 10-12 hours.

Observations show that cows can eat grass for no more than 8 hours. It is very important to provide watering for animals, for which water is either supplied to the pastures or a moving installation with a volume of 3 m3 and pedal drinkers is placed. At a considerable distance from pastures, summer camps are set up, which are light wooden buildings, where animals spend the night and receive part of the green feed. Mobile milking units are used for milking. Keeping livestock in camps makes it easier to carry out repairs and reconstruction of production facilities. The camp site should be located so that the environment is not polluted by animal excrement.

Keeping cows on good pastures, especially long-term cultivated ones, reduces the cost of milk production.

To increase the efficiency of pastures, farms are switching to portioned use. To do this, using a portable electric fence (electric shepherd), a section is identified in the paddock in which the available grass was sufficient for the cows for one day. In other words, if a herd of 200 heads needs 120 centners of grass per day, and the pasture productivity in a given grazing cycle is 60 centners/ha, then a plot of 2 hectares is allocated for cows per day, or 1 hectare for half a day. In such conditions, animals receive only fresh grass, which is especially important for highly productive cows.

Portion use increases the productivity of long-term cultivated pastures by 10-15% compared to paddock use.

Livestock → Public pasture

The “first day” happened in 1992, when Ivan Petrovich’s father decided to become a farmer. As often happened, the collective farm prevented the allocation of land shares, and with such tenacity that they had to call the Don-TR film crew. The story was shown on television, and this apparently had an effect: the Sinners received the required 17 hectares as their property.

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As it turned out later, winning the battle did not mean winning the war. Although the land is leased from the farmer, everyone uses it. There are two roads leading through the pasture to the pond. One exists “historically”, and the other, having hired a grader, was unscrupulously laid by local fishermen. People come along this road to fish and relax by the pond. Once they hit a sheep, another time they hit a shepherd dog. Traces of fishermen are visible everywhere: heaps of garbage, burnt reeds, warehouses of branches and wood that were used to strengthen the shore.

Basic rules for organizing and conducting the pasture period for keeping cattle

What you need to know about pastures and their proper management, as well as the basics of pasture feeding and watering livestock:

♦ The required area of ​​cultivated pasture per cow should be 0.4-0.5 hectares, for young cattle - 0.2 hectares; the area of ​​highly productive intensive legume-cereal pasture per cow is 0.3-0.35 hectares. The required area of ​​natural natural pastures is calculated based on their productivity. ♦ Cows should begin grazing in the spring when the grass height is 10-12 cm. ♦ The transition to grazing should be gradual - over 10-12 days, while feeding with roughage and molasses is used to stabilize ruminal digestion. The transition from grazing to winter feeding should also be gradual. From mid-September, roughage should be introduced into the cows' diet, and the amount of silage should be gradually increased. The use of green grasses can be extended by growing annual grasses and spring rape. ♦ Grazing animals on winter rye and cruciferous crops allows you to start the grazing season two weeks earlier than usual. ♦ To prevent the grass from overripening, cyclic grazing should be carried out throughout the entire pasture area (spring run). Excess mass is mowed down in the early stages of plant development to avoid slowing down their regrowth. ♦ It is necessary to strictly observe pasture rotation so that the height of the grass does not exceed 15 cm. With such grass, the cow eats 65-75 kg of feed per day, while with a height of 20-25 cm only 35-40 kg. ♦ The use of driven and portioned grazing is essential, which increases the yield of green mass by 20-25%, increases the digestibility of feed by 20% and the productivity of cows by 15-20% compared to unsystematic grazing. For optimal use of grass, morning grazing begins with the portion where the animals grazed the day before, and then switches to fresh grass. First of all, this must be observed on pastures with leguminous grasses in order to prevent tympania in cows, especially during early grazing, when the dew has not dried. ♦ Increasing dry matter consumption by cows is achieved through partial mowing and wilting of the grass stand. This technique is also effective for overgrown grass, as it increases its acceptability by animals. ♦ Proper organization of mineral nutrition is very important: each cow requires 150 g of salt per day for normal salt metabolism. It is also useful to introduce microelements into the salt composition (zinc sulfate, cobalt, manganese, potassium nitrogen), and at the beginning of the season - magnesium-containing additives. ♦ A watering hole for animals on a pasture is organized at the rate of providing 60-70 liters of water per cow, on hot days - up to 120 liters. ♦ We should not forget about systematic pasture care: mowing inedible residues to a height of 5-6 cm and leveling manure heaps ensure an increase in pasture yield by up to 20%. ♦ After each grazing cycle, it is necessary to timely fertilize the grasses with nitrogen in doses of no more than 60 kg/ha to avoid excess nitrates in the grass stand. Timely sowing of grasses into the pasture turf while reducing the share of the legume component allows you to save expensive nitrogen fertilizers due to legumes fixing nitrogen from the atmosphere.

When properly grazed, the cow will produce the same or slightly more milk than if fed indoors. To ensure the constant productivity of the dairy herd during the grazing period, you need to know the main points regarding the characteristics of the animals’ consumption of green pasture food and the characteristics of providing an appropriate feeding ration.

1. The dry matter consumption of feed on pasture and when fed indoors is practically the same. 2. Dairy cows on pasture “from under their feet” consume feed of higher digestibility. 3. With good grass cover, approximately 70-80% of it is used. 4. When feeding green mass, it is necessary to monitor the supply of easily digestible carbohydrates, crude fiber and crude fat to cows. 5. Pasture feeds do not provide highly productive animals with energy, phosphorus, microelements, and, in certain periods of plant growth and development, fiber. 6. An unbalanced diet leads to increased feed consumption (by 10-20% in terms of nutritional value and dry matter) per unit of production. 7. In the summer, when feeding cattle with green feed, it is necessary to analyze all feed at least 3 times per season. 8. It is necessary to balance rations according to all indicators in accordance with the planned productivity, data from the analysis of feed and animal blood. 9. Find a manufacturer capable of producing and supplying you with a high-quality feed additive to the basic diet according to a specific recipe. 10. To optimize diets, use computer programs with a modern unit for calculating the nutritional and energy needs of animals.

Source

We are equipping the building

The best option for maintenance is an old farm. Building a building from scratch is not an economically viable option. An alternative is to rent a ready-made barn.

The room should be located away from residential buildings and sources of water . According to sanitary standards, the minimum distance to a house is 15 meters, to wells - 20 meters. It is preferable that it be located next to the garden (manure disposal).

If you decide to build a barn yourself, pay attention to the materials. Brick or foam concrete are suitable for construction - they retain heat well. It is advisable to make the floor from cement - it is durable and hygienic. Wood is not recommended, as the material absorbs odors and rots quickly.

Stall organization

If there are a large number of animals, you need to equip stalls . For comfortable keeping of 1 cow, 2 sq.m. is enough. Be sure to make a slope for waste drainage. The stall should have a separate door for cleaning (located on the opposite side of the feeder).

If you want to receive large volumes of milk, consider the water supply and purchase milking systems. It is more profitable to buy a special device than to regularly pay milkmaids.

A useful addition to a barn is a loft. This is a convenient place to store hay. It will also allow for additional insulation of the ceiling.

Where to put the manure

The consequences of throwing out fresh manure for soil and water are serious and threaten environmental disasters. Unfavorable situations arise due to violations of the storage technology of this organic fertilizer. For example, there is contamination of groundwater with nitrogen compounds.

Due to the widespread nature of the phenomenon, the Law “On Manure” has been in force in Russia since 2014. These wastes are divided into hazard classes, so processing, transportation and disposal require certification. Documentation is expensive, and the profitability of an official enterprise that has organized storage methods according to recycling rules is reduced to zero. Private individual entrepreneurs and LLCs, under pain of fines, organize:

• Processing into vermicompost;
• Processing into biogas;
• Granulation.

The first option for processing manure is traditional. Farm waste is placed more densely in heaps. After 2-3 months, humus is obtained. It is harmless to plants and is as easily digestible as possible. Fertilizer is valued by gardeners and gardeners. The humus delivery business is considered a profitable, but seasonal phenomenon.

The second method is innovation, for which special designs are used. In them, the product undergoes anaerobic digestion. The installations produce energy fuel, which is used on farms to heat barns. Using the same generators, processed products are granulated, enriched with bacteria and used as high-quality fertilizers.

Nutritional Features

The diet should include hay, feed and various baits (seasonal vegetables, seeds, grass).
A cow needs from 9 to 14 kg of hay per day. Remember, if an animal eats low-quality hay, the milk will taste bitter. It is useful to include flax and sunflower cake and oats in the diet. Also, the products should replenish the supply of carbohydrates - it is necessary to give the cows fodder beets, carrots, potatoes, and corn silage. Farmers recommend adding urea (carbamide) to the feed to enrich the stomach.

Warnings

• As mentioned above, do not shout or chase the cattle as... this will only increase stress. And when they feel cornered, it can make them aggressive. Trapped animals are very dangerous and can seriously injure you or even kill you.
• Excited, wild movements can also cause a lot of damage to equipment and the animals themselves. Walking calmly and slowly is the fastest way to get them moving and on track without any problems.

For beef cows in the USA and Canada, one of the following diets is recommended for the winter.

1. Good quality legume hay - 4.5 kg. Low quality roughage - 3.6-4.5 kg.
2. Mixed bean hay - 8.2-9.0 kg.
3. Corn silage - 9-11.3 kg or hybrid sorghum silage - 11-14 kg.
4. Corn silage - 11.5-13.5 kg or hybrid sorghum silage - 13.5-16.0 kg. Mixed hay - 3.6-4.5 kg.
5. Forage sorghum silage - 22.5 kg. Protein supplement (32% protein) - 0.9 kg.
6. Corn silage from hybrid sorghum - 16-18 kg. Mixed hay - 1.8 kg.
7. Ensiled corn stalks - 16-20 kg. Mixed hay - 4.5 kg.
8. Haylage from cereals and legumes - 16-18 kg (45% dry matter).
9. Good bean hay - 2.8-3.6 kg. Ground corn cobs in wrapper - 2.8-3.6 kg.

The energy content of these diets is low - they contain only about 5 feeds. units During the winter (150-160 days), Canadian farmers in steppe conditions feed a beef cow 80-100 kg of grain, 1.5-2 tons of hay, about 50 kg of protein supplements - that is, about 6 feeds. units in a day. Such feeding cannot satisfy the body's need for nutrients. Therefore, these diets should be considered as supplementary food for winter pastures.

When determining the duration and methods of using pastures by season, advanced farms proceed from specific economic conditions. An important issue in this case is the need to feed animals with other feeds, in particular concentrates, in addition to pastures.

Some researchers suggest feeding beef cows with concentrated feed in addition to pasture to increase the weaning weight of calves.

Another group of scientists, based on economic considerations and taking into account the biological characteristics of cows, denies such feasibility.

The lack of scientifically sound data on this issue leads to technological inconsistency. Many state farms for meat production, especially breeding ones, feed their cows with concentrates in addition to pastures, while some of them, including breeding ones and “Chapaevsky” in the Ural region, keep animals only on pastures. This issue was studied by the authors in a special scientific and economic experiment.

Three herds of cows, kept in the same feeding and housing conditions in winter, were kept on natural wormwood-grass pastures of similar productivity during the grazing season. The animals of the first herd did not receive additional feeding in addition to the pastures. During the period of vegetation burning (July, August), the cows of the second herd (without calves) were given 2 kg of barley daily, and the animals of the third herd (both cows and calves) were grazed on summer crops of Sudanese grass for 2 hours in the afternoon. In the fall of the previous year, as well as before going out to pasture (April 30) and during grading (September 30), the animals were weighed and their fatness assessed.

Both with and without feeding, all cows, regardless of fatness, at the end of the stall period (April 30) in the fall reached high standards. Moreover, the lower the fatness of the cows at the end of winter, the higher the gain they gave.

It was noted that the animals of the first herd were grazed daily 1 1/2-2 hours more than the cows that received additional feeding.

A biological feature of animals of specialized meat breeds in the area of ​​their breeding is the ability to accumulate nutrients in the body, to “prepare” in the summer for the upcoming winter period, which is usually accompanied not only by a violation of the nutritional value of the diet, but also, as a rule, by a general lack of nutrients.

Perhaps this feature explains the ability of animals with low fatness, even without feeding, to reach a high condition by the fall.

The cows of the second herd, which received concentrated feeding, raised calves at weaning of the same weight as the cows of the first herd, which did not receive any additional feeding.

The calves from the animals of the third herd were somewhat heavier. This is due to feeding not only the cows, but also the calves themselves, which were grazed on the Sudanese crops together with their mothers.

Fertilizing had no effect on the duration of the service period. In all three herds, it was shorter in cows that had higher fatness at the end of winter.

Taking into account the results of these observations, breeding farms and many other state farms in the Ural region completely abandoned feeding cows during the grazing period. Practice has shown that even in dry years, cows of the Kazakh white-headed breed, even without feeding, reach high standards by autumn.

Consequently, feeding beef cows during the grazing period does not have a noticeable positive effect.

Employees

When you start working in rural areas, you can recruit villagers as hired workers. So, you need the following vacancies:

• milkmaid (1) – 15,000;
• veterinarian-zootechnician (1) – 17,000;
• handyman (1) – 13,000;
• sales manager (1) – 16,000;
• accountant - 15,000.

But if the farm owner has free time, he can take on the responsibilities of a manager and accountant, thereby reducing the costs of the enterprise. In this case, you will only need to hire a milkmaid, a handyman and a veterinarian. You will pay them approximately 45 thousand rubles.

What it is?

Animals will bring considerable income , since milk can be used to make butter, cheese and other fermented milk products, freeze meat, sell it fresh, or seal a stew. Another option for generating income is raising and reselling young animals. The first step of a novice farmer is a thorough analysis of the slightest nuances of the future business.

Before understanding how to breed cows, it is necessary to understand the ultimate goals of this action.

1. Analysis of the conditions of the region of residence (are there fields for grazing).
2. Economic factor (competitors and product market).
3. Features of keeping cows in winter and summer.
4. Clarification of the final goal (obtaining meat, milk or complex products). Selection of appropriate breeds.
5. Environmental factor (where to sell manure).

Cows are distinguished by their large size, good appetite (they consume a lot of feed) and demanding conditions in their place of residence, but all these aspects are quickly covered by finished products.

What should a barn be like?

The height of the walls of the barn, for favorable housing of animals, should be 2.5 meters. Especially the barn floors are built. The floor must be higher than ground level, and must be equipped with a slope of 2-3 cm for liquid drainage.

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Purchase of young animals

The purchase of calves is selected depending on the purpose for which you need them: for meat or dairy products. Breeding cows for milk as a business (you will find a video on this topic at the end of the article) will be a pretty good start for a beginner. To choose the right dairy stock, you should pay attention to several features.

When purchasing animals, be guided by your own experience and advice from experts.

Cows that are best suited for milk have a round midsection and underdeveloped muscles, so their bellies are often oddly shaped. In addition, they have thin horns and a more elongated head. In dairy cows, the withers are quite sharp, and the loin is aligned with the croup of the cattle's body. Together they form an almost straight line. Of course, the udder must be very large and completely hairless. After milking is finished, it decreases greatly and forms small folds.

It is also necessary to pay attention to the age of the individual, since over time she will produce less and less milk. How many years an animal lives can be calculated by its horns, that is, by the number of lines on them. When you count all the ridges on the horns, simply add two more years to this number and get the exact age of the cow. Everything is more than simple.

Great income will be brought not only by the sale of milk, but also by raising cows for meat. So, now let's turn our attention to the selection of these breeds. They differ in the following features:

• heavy weight;
• suitability of carcass;
• cow's adaptability to climate change;
• a healthy uterus so that the cow can bear calves every year;
• rapid growth of young animals.

Such cows are very rarely purchased for sale; most often they are taken for the sale of meat. This type of business is the most profitable business, but also the most difficult.

How much land is allocated for pasture to rural residents per 1 head of cattle?

The wire was attached with metal staples to wooden slats (width 5-6, thickness 2-3, height 100-110 cm), located between the posts every 5 m. The slats only touched the surface of the ground and prevented one row of wire from overlapping another during the wind, and also in winter, when it sags due to frozen snow or ice. The top row of wire was pulled at a height of 110 cm, the remaining rows were distributed evenly - in four-row sections after 20-25 cm, in three-row sections - after 30-35 cm.

In fenced pastures, animals were kept without shepherds. However, to organize a watering place and carry out preventive veterinary measures, one worker was assigned to each herd—the herd caretaker. When necessary, he was assigned assistants.

How to take care of your health

Prevention of livestock diseases begins with knowledge of the main external signs of disease. The surest of all is the depressed state of the animal. Externally, cattle can constantly lie down or, conversely, stand. Associated signs are a drooping head, dull or sunken eyes. If the cow's condition worsens, she loses her appetite and does not chew food.

Naturally, milk productivity also decreases. The animal's normal body temperature may decrease or increase. For example, the first is observed during poisoning, and the second during a cold. If your lungs are inflamed, your breathing will become faster.

To prevent certain diseases, routine vaccinations and following the veterinarian's recommendations are sufficient. For example, a concentrated formol-alum vaccine is used against salmonellosis. It is placed twice - 2 months before calving, 10 days after. Vaccination against foot and mouth disease is done in problem areas with a risk of disease in newborn calves from the first days of life. The Anthrax vaccine is required according to indications, for 3-month and 14-month-old heifers. The brucellosis strain is introduced before insemination, only with the approval of veterinarians.

How to care

The skin and limbs of animals require systematic special care. You need to clean not only to get rid of dirt, but also to get rid of parasites. Thus, the general condition of the cow improves. This occurs by stimulating blood circulation and massaging the skin. These factors improve the animal’s appetite, which has a positive effect on milk production.

Cleaning is organized an hour before milking outside the milking room. Keeping a cow at home without grazing requires a particularly careful approach. On farms, a special portable vacuum cleaner is used. At home, tools can be scrapers, brushes and combs. The most contaminated places of the cow are the sides, tail, and legs. The limbs are washed with warm soapy water and wiped with prepared rags.

Caring for hooves and horns comes down to their systematic trimming. For this work, special hoof tongs and scissors should be used. In order to prevent possible injuries to the treated limbs, attention is paid to the cleanliness of the surface of walking areas. The garbage must be removed immediately.

About reproduction

The sexual age of heifers is 8 months, the onset of physiological maturity occurs at 18 months . Live weight by this period reaches 300 kg. Female cows have a sexual cycle that repeats every 21 days.

For proper insemination, mating must be done 10-12 hours before feeding. The duration of pregnancy is 285 days. In the second half of the term, fetal movements are observed in the right side of the abdomen. In the last month of pregnancy, you need to stop milking the cow (give physiological rest).

It is important to provide pregnant cows with a balanced diet. Their diet should include hay, succulent feed, concentrates and mineral supplements (chalk, salt, flour).

Signs that labor has begun - the cow looks at her belly, moos loudly, and stomps her hooves. The owner needs to treat the paws, tail and genitals with potassium permanganate and wipe with a towel. Cows usually do not need other human assistance when calving.

It is provided that each pasture cage contains:

• satisfactory vegetation, allowing to keep a certain (for each species) number of farm animals during the year or its individual periods;
• reliable sources of water supply (permanent or seasonal);
• diverse microrelief, ensuring the presence of areas with grass stands of different growing seasons;
• if possible, natural shelters (trees, folds of terrain) for animals in hot weather or bad weather.

The process of fencing pastures consists of two operations: constructing a cage frame from posts; tensioning and securing the wire. When constructing a cell frame, two types of supports are used: load-bearing ones, on which the wire is pulled, and light ones, which prevent the wire rows from overlapping each other. The load-bearing supports are wooden (about 20 cm in diameter) or reinforced concrete (15-18 cm) pillars. Two types of load-bearing supports are used (Fig. 3): with horizontal (I) and diagonal (II) crossbars.

Horizontal type supports are stronger, but somewhat more expensive. Installing diagonal supports is 15-20% cheaper. However, they require annual repairs as the wire sag. Load-bearing supports are installed in the corners of the pens, as well as along the fence at a distance of 500 m to 2 km from one another. The more often the supports, the easier it is to pull the wire and the stronger the fence, but the more expensive it is. Lightweight supports are made in the form of wooden slats or most often from metal angle iron (side length 2x2 cm, thickness 0.2-0.3 cm) with a pointed end, with which the support is deepened 3-5 cm into the ground.

They are placed at a distance of 4-5 m from one another. The wire is soldered or threaded into special holes.

When constructing fences, importance is attached to their height, as well as the size of the wire row spacing. The optimal height of the fence (along the top row of wire) when keeping cattle is considered to be 100 cm. The distance between the rows of wire for cows with calves is 25-30 cm, and when keeping only adult animals - up to 35 cm.

On pastures for cattle, two types of fences are built: from barbed wire or combined - from barbed and smooth. In combined fences, barbed wire is stretched in the top and bottom rows, and smooth wire is used in the middle. A metal mesh is usually made from smooth wire for fencing pastures. However, even in this case, one row of barbed wire is stretched along its upper edge.

In recent years, foreign beef cattle breeding has begun to use a combined fence consisting of three rows of barbed wire and two strands of electric fence installed in a T-shape.

The advantage of this fence is that contact between animals in different cages is prevented, since when approaching each other they inevitably touch the electric wire.

At the entrance to fenced pasture areas, so-called Texas gates are built, which remain open at all times. Cars or people can pass through them without hindrance, but animals cannot pass through. To do this, make a grid of three-inch metal pipes or wooden beams (5X15 cm) with a slot width of 15-17 cm, which is laid over a hole dug the width of the passage. Cattle cannot pass through such a grid, since their legs fall through the cracks, while cars pass freely.

Livestock farmers attach primary importance to watering when organizing pastures. In order to save money, watering areas are usually arranged at the junction of several cells, the approaches to which are concreted. At watering places, feeders with mineral salts are placed (under light canopies from rain and sun), 1 mechanical scratchers are also built, which automatically spray the animals with a disinfectant solution.

Intensive grazing technology involves extending the grazing period by creating special late-autumn and winter pastures. For grazing in late autumn and winter, areas with tall grass stand are allocated. Animals are usually grazed on such pastures all day long in good weather and returned to the farm at night.

Research has established that winter pastures, no matter how highly productive they are, cannot provide the full nutritional needs of animals. Therefore, on farms in the USA and Canada, during winter grazing of beef cattle, summer crops of tall-stemmed grain crops or annual grasses are used as top dressing.

In late autumn, such crops are mowed with reapers or combines into large double windrows and left on the field. Animals take out the mown mass from under the snow. If the winter turns out to be snowy, these areas are used for grazing animals in early spring, when the grass has not yet grown back.

Many years of interesting experience in extending the grazing period by summer sowing of annual grasses have been accumulated on collective and state farms in the Chita region. Here such pastures are used for sheep farming.