A Guide to Buying Stock Feed
Livestock farming, especially cattle farming, is a very important and profitable business, and one of the largest industries in the country. Cattle products are very valuable, ranging from milk products, meat products and leather, whereas sometimes the horns and hooves may also be used to make hair products and pet foods. Interestingly, even the blood from the cattle may be used to make blood meal.
The point is, if you are a cattle farmer, you have a variety of customers, whose demand you have to meet to be successful. One of the ways of ensuring that you will reach the demand of your customers is by making sure you provide your cattle with the right feed. Below are some of the factors to consider when buying stock feed for your cattle.
What the customers want
Some customers might be very specific about what you feed your cattle. Some may insist they want grass-fed meat or milk, or corn-fed meat or milk. Because your customer is the target of your business, you need to go by what they want. Therefore, find out what your customer wants before buying the feed.
The purpose of the feed
Food supplements each serve a particular purpose when bought. For instance, the growth supplements will stimulate the rate at which your cattle will grow, sometimes to abnormal proportions. Also, health supplements are used to increase the immunity and the strength of the cattle. Therefore, you need to know why you are buying the feed. At the same time, you need to know whether your customers will be okay with the supplements. For instance, some may not favour growth supplements.
Ease of digestion
Some stock feed may be difficult to digest, therefore affecting the quality of milk or meat produced. For instance, fodder is very easy to digest and is very good for dairy cattle. Therefore, when purchasing your feed, make sure that the cattle will not have a hard time digesting it.
The cost
Feeding your cattle is the most significant expenditure that you will meet when it comes to cattle farming. Therefore, when making your purchase, you need to be sure that you can minimise this expenditure as much as possible while still retaining quality. For instance, processed feed such as supplements is very expensive compared to natural pastures such as fodder. Therefore, it is advisable to cut costs by mixing natural and processed feed, as opposed to relying on processed feed only. If anything, meat and products from cattle fed on natural feed are of a higher quality.
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