| A century ago - the working horses on
each farm consumed about 10% of a farms output. Working horses in
towns and cities took another 10% of the national production, much
of this being oats and hay. Maybe a third of all land was used for
hay-making, where the dried grasses were stored and used to get
the animals through the winter, and kale and beets were also grown
as animal fodder crops. Even animals wintering outdoors such as
sheep and beef cattle would need additional feeds to be in good
health for lambing and calving, depending on the intensity of grazing.
Pigs were generally fed on left-over food from hospitals and schools,
chickens found what they could in the farmyard, though extra feed
would probably produce more eggs and fatter chickens.
Nowadays, there are great changes:-
- Hay is seldom made in the old way - silage is made instead.
This is an anaerobic fermentation process (similar to sauerkraut
!) where less nutrients and mass are lost,
- It is possible to have a profitable agricultural business
with a large shed of animals, using entirely 'bought-in' feeds,
although many farmers still grow a percentage of their own fodder
on economic grounds
- Horses are now almost entirely 'hobby' animals
- In Germany, 95% of cattle never go outdoors ! The winters
are too cold for them to be outside, the summers are too hot
for them, so they have a luxury life in stalls all year compared
to British cattle. This decision seems to have been made about
40 years ago, and this has allowed the Germans to remove nearly
all fences from their agricultural land, which is a great economic
gain.
- Most feeds are 'compounded' by feed manufacturers to provide
a balanced diet for the animals. They might typically be composed
of grains, grass, molasses, malt, potato residues, other food
processing residues
The general economics of animal farming are that the input of
approximately 10 tons of grain or equivalent vegetable matter
will produce 1 ton of animal protein (beef, chicken, milk product,
etc.)
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