The global drive towards sustainability and improved animal health means there is a greater need for development of novel functional ingredients for the feed industry. As the requirements for protein for livestock feed and human consumption grows, the use of insect products as animal feed has gained increasing attention. Covering global production systems of insect protein, oil and chitin, as well as co-products from this industry, this book: - Considers in-depth nutritional and safety aspects of insects for feed. - Reviews suitability of insects as feed for different animal species and life stages. - Examines current knowledge of the value of insect-rearing residues as biofertilizers for crop health. - Identifies the challenges related to regulation, legislation, consumer perception and acceptance, and commercialization of insects. - Provides interviews with established and early-stage innovative companies producing insect protein for feed. Including a focus on practices such as waste valorization, this book takes a holistic look at how insects could contribute to the sustainability of livestock production on a global scale. Providing an up-to-date reference for research scientists, nutritionists, and veterinarians, as well as prospective insect farmers, it will also be of interest to those with a broader curiosity towards climate change, sustainability, and the circular economy.

With this study the cattle guard joins the sod house, the windmill, and barbed wire as a symbol of range country on the American Great Plains. A U.S. folk innovation now in use throughout the world, the cattle guard functions as both a gate and a fence: it keeps livestock from crossing, but allows automobiles and people to cross freely. The author blends traditional history and folklore to trace the origins of the cattle guard and to describe how, in true folk fashion, the device in its simplest form-wooden poles or logs spaced in parallel fashion over a pit in the roadway-was reinvented and adapted throughout livestock country. Hoy traces the origins of the cattle guard to flat stone stiles unique to Cornwall, England, then through the railroad cattle guard, in use in this country as early as 1836, and finally to the Great Plains where, probably in 1905, the first ones appeared on roads. He describes regional variations in cattle guards and details unusual types. He provides information on cattle-guard makers, who range from local blacksmiths and welders to farmers and ranchers to large manufacturers. In addition to documenting the economic and cultural significance of the cattle guard, this volume reveals much about early twentieth-century farm and ranch life. It will be of interest not only to folklorists and historians of agriculture and Western America, but also to many Plains-area farmers, ranchers, and oilmen.

The very mention of Afghanistan conjures images of war, international power politics, the opium trade, and widespread corruption. Yet the untold story of Afghanistan's seemingly endless misfortune is the disruptive impact that prolonged conflict has had on ordinary rural Afghans, their culture, and the timeless relationship they share with their land and animals. In rural Afghanistan, when animals die, livelihoods are lost, families and communities suffer, and people may perish. That Sheep May Safely Graze details a determined effort, in the midst of war, to bring essential veterinary services to an agrarian society that depends day in and day out on the well-being and productivity of its animals, but which, because of decades of war and the disintegration of civil society, had no reliable access to even the most basic animal health care. The book describes how, in the face of many obstacles, a dedicated group of Afghan and expatriate veterinarians working for a small non governmental organization (NGO) in Kabul was able to create a national network of over 400 veterinary field units staffed by over 600 veterinary para professionals. These paravets were selected by their own communities and then trained and outfitted by the NGO so that nearly every district in the country that needed basic veterinary services now has reliable access to such services. Most notably, over a decade after its inception and with Afghanistan still in free fall, this private sector, district-based animal health program remains vitally active. The community-based veterinary para professionals continue to provide quality services to farmers and herders, protecting their animals from the ravages of disease and improving their livelihoods, despite the political upheavals and instability that continue to plague the country. The elements contributing to this sustainability and their application to programs for improved veterinary service delivery in developing countries beyond Afghanistan are described in the narrative.

This is the personal journal of a young American woman, living for six months amongst the Dodoth cattle-herdsmen in Northern Uganda. It is also an adventure story, for during this period the Dodoth were caught up in an escalating cycle of violence with their age-old rivals, the Turkana tribe. The animating tension of this feud was the tradition of cattle raiding, but it escalated to unprecedented levels of violence when the new nation states of Uganda and Kenya were drawn in to police these ancient clan frontiers. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas s total immersion in the life of this tribe in 1961 takes us with her, as with clarity and a lyrical eye for detail she brings their whole culture alive. For though she was not an academic herself, she had spent much time in the field with her mother, who was the world s leading authority on the Bushman of the Kalahari. So it was natural for Elizabeth Marshall Thomas to take her own young children on this adventure, where she proves herself such a brave, humane and unshockable witness to the life of the warrior herdsmen.

As Britain industrialized in the early nineteenth century, animal breeders faced the need to convert livestock into products while maintaining the distinctive character of their breeds. Thus they transformed cattle and sheep adapted to regional environments into bulky, quick-fattening beasts. Exploring the environmental and economic ramifications of imperial expansion on colonial environments and production practices, Rebecca J. H. Woods traces how global physiological and ecological diversity eroded under the technological, economic, and cultural system that grew up around the production of livestock by the British Empire. Attending to the relationship between type and place and what it means to call a particular breed of livestock ""native,"" Woods highlights the inherent tension between consumer expectations in the metropole and the ecological reality at the periphery. Based on extensive archival work in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia, this study illuminates the connections between the biological consequences and the politics of imperialism. In tracing both the national origins and imperial expansion of British breeds, Woods uncovers the processes that laid the foundation for our livestock industry today.

The world of the West has been from the beginning a man's world, but there are homes and wives and children there, too. And although the time of water hauled in barrels and of homemade candles is long past, the ranch wife of today must be prepared to deal with housekeeping, shopping, and personal problems in wholly original ways as the need arises. For ranches are usually far from town and neighbors are scattered, so that good humor and a good sense of humor, as well as the more conventional virtues of courage and fortitude, must be possessed by the ranch woman.For more than eighteen months Alice Marriott traveled the cattle country from Wyoming to Florida-visiting, observing, and talking with the women on the ranches and with their men. This book is the story of these women, who share with their men-folks the problems and pleasures of ranch life. It's about the city girl transformed into ranch wife, about the women who were born on ranches, and about their families and the cattle they raise. She reports on the modern roundups, the cattle sales, the courage of both men and women in the face of a howling blizzard, and the tragedy of a cow with a broken leg. Here they are-the real people of the cattle country and the real things that happen to them in a society in which the man's work is sharply distinguished from the woman's. And, concludes Miss Marriott, ranch life ""can be hard and tough and truly hell for the women who live it, but it can also come about as close to Heaven as any life a woman can live today."" This is a book for Western enthusiasts, for women everywhere, and for just good reading.

If there was ever a ""ring-tailed roarer"" of the backwoods of New Mexico, he was Quentin Hulse (1926-2002). Hulse lived and worked most of his life at the bottom of Canyon Creek in the Gila River country of southwestern New Mexico, but his reputation spread far and wide. His western image appeared on a tourist postcard and souvenir license plate in the 1950s. Footage of a lion hunt led by Hulse and his hounds appeared on the Men's Channel in 2005, three years after his passing. Hulse grew up primarily in western New Mexico when that ranch and mining country was still remote and raw. At the age of ten he witnessed a point-blank shooting, the culmination of an old-fashioned frontier feud. He followed his parents between mines and towns until his father established a ranch at Canyon Creek. While serving in the navy during World War II, he landed on the bloody beach at Okinawa. After returning from the war, he was shot in a bar near Silver City during a night of carousing. Hulse was most at home in the rugged Gila Wilderness, in which he ranched and guided for fifty years. With compassion and nuance, Nancy Coggeshall tells the compelling biography of a unique western rancher constantly adjusting to the inroads of modernity into his traditional way of life. Drawing on oral history, archival sources, and her personal association with Hulse and the Gila, she brings this unique westerner, and New Mexican, to life.

Including information on cattle, pigs, poultry, sheep, and goats, and exotics like bison, rabbits, elk, and deer How can anyone from a backyard hobbyist to a large-scale rancher go about raising and selling ethically produced meats directly to consumers, restaurants, and butcher shops? With the rising consumer interest in grass-fed, pasture-raised, and antibiotic-free meats, how can farmers most effectively tap into those markets and become more profitable? The regulations and logistics can be daunting enough to turn away most would-be livestock farmers, and finding and keeping their customers challenges the rest. Farmer, consultant, and author Rebecca Thistlethwaite (Farms with a Future) and her husband and coauthor, Jim Dunlop, both have extensive experience raising a variety of pastured livestock in California and now on their homestead farm in Oregon. The New Livestock Farmer provides pasture-based production essentials for a wide range of animals, from common farm animals (cattle, poultry, pigs, sheep, and goats) to more exotic species (bison, rabbits, elk, and deer). Each species chapter discusses the unique requirements of that animal, then delves into the steps it takes to prepare and get them to market. Profiles of more than fifteen meat producers highlight some of the creative ways these innovative farmers are raising animals and direct-marketing superior-quality meats. In addition, the book contains information on a variety of vital topics: * Governmental regulations and how they differ from state to state; * Slaughtering and butchering logistics, including on-farm and mobile processing options and sample cutting sheets; * Packaging, labeling, and cold-storage considerations; * Principled marketing practices; and * Financial management, pricing, and other business essentials. This book is must reading for anyone who is serious about raising meat animals ethically, outside of the current consolidated, unsustainable CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) system. It offers a clear, thorough, well-organized guide to a subject that will become increasingly important as the market demand for pasture-raised meat grows stronger.

So Far and Yet So Close provides a comparative study of frontier cattle ranching in two societies on opposite ends of the globe. It is also an environmental history that at the same time centres on both the natural and frontier environments. There are many points at which the western Canadian and northern Australian cattle frontiers evoke comparisons. Most obviously they came to life at about the same time: late 1870s-early 1880s. In both cases corporations were heavy investors and utilized an open range system in which tens of thousands of cattle roamed over thousands of square acres. Ranchers shared similar problems such as predators, disease, and weather, as well as markets. Ultimately, a nearly indistinguishable "country" culture developed in these geographically disparate and distant lands, which is still apparent today. Many similarities were in one way or another a reflection of frontier environmental conditions that is, conditions associated with the very "newness" of society. They included a lack of infrastructure (ie. fences), institutions (ie. police), and population (ie. consumers). However, the ranching people in these two societies had their differences too. In the end, the natural environment pushed agricultural development in these two regions along very different paths.