Page 129 - Agriculture_Form_Three

Agriculture for Secondary Schools

Livestock feeding systems
Livestock, particularly ruminants, are mainly fed outdoors or indoors. On one hand,
outdoor feeding involves pasture and rangeland direct grazing. On the other hand,

indoor feeding involves feeding livestock with various feedstuffs in the stalls hence
it is termed as stall feeding. The pastures used in grazing ruminants may be natural
or established ones. In natural pastures, animals graze extensively and continuously
while being provided with water naturally from the rangeland. Sometimes this
system of feeding is called continuous grazing. The established pastures are normally
fenced to make paddocks where animals are allowed to feed from one paddock
to another in rotation, hence it is termed as rotational grazing. In this case, care
should be taken to see that there are no poisonous plants and the paddocks are not
overgrazed. Water troughs are constructed in the paddocks or at one drinking point.

In stall feeding system, forages and other feeds are provided in the feeding troughs
while water is provided in the water troughs. Tethering grazing system is sometimes
practised in subsistence livestock farming. In coming sections, continuous grazing,
rotational grazing, tethering and stall systems of feeding livestock are elaborated.

Continuous grazing system
In this system of grazing, animals are allowed to have unrestricted and uninterrupted

access to a specific unit of grazing land throughout the whole or part of the grazing
season. Normally, the farmer guides the animals to where good pasture and water
sources are available (refer to Figure 5.14).

Figure 5.14: Animals being guided by herders in continuous grazing

Source: https://live.staticflickr.com/384/31716184430_6119fa692b_b.jpg

Student’s Book Form Three
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