Livestock Reference Libraries

Fodder is a term used in reference to the feed cut, sometimes prepared, and brought to domesticated farm animals such as cows, goats and pigs. Some fodder is prepared using oils and mixed rations that are mixed in with several different types of sprouted grain and legumes such as alfalfa, clover, corn, and several different types of grass. In the countries that allow it, fodder can also...

Overgrazing occurs when plants are unprotected to intensive grazing for extended periods of time, or without enough recovery periods. It can be a result of either livestock in poorly managed agricultural applications, or by overpopulations of native or non-native wild animals. Overgrazing reduces the usefulness, biodiversity, and productivity of the land and is one cause of desertification...

Llama, Lama glama The llama (Lama glama) is a domesticated camelid from South America. It is often used as a pack animal or for meat by Andean cultures. Its hair is used to make clothing and handicrafts. The course outer hair is typically used to make lead ropes, rugs, and wall hangings, and the fibers can come in many colors ranging from black to reddish brown to white. Because of...

The dromedary camel (Camelus dromedarius), also known as the Arabian camel, is a completely domesticated species that appears on the IUCN Red List with a conservation status of “Domesticated”. It is thought that when wild, its native range was mainly in the Arabian Peninsula. It can now be found in South Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East. The only dromedary camels that display wild...

The mountain goat (Oreamnos americanus), also called the Rocky Mountain goat is only found in North America. Even though it is a goat in name, it is not in the Capra genus of true goats. It belongs to the subfamily Caprinae, which holds goat-antelopes which holds thirty-two other species. It is in the family Bovidae that holds other creatures such as cattle, antelopes, and gazelle. It is the...

Camelops, an extinct genus of camel, was found in North America in places like Arizona and they first appeared there in the late Pliocene era. There are six known species in this genus. Camelops became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene era, around ten thousand years ago. The Camelops extinction was part of a larger die-off of other large animals including mastodons, horses, and camelids....

Pasteurization, used to slow microbial growth in food, is a process of heating food or liquid to a specific temperature for a definite length of time and then cooling immediately. Louis Pasteur was the creator of the process and completed his first test with Claude Bernard in April 20, 1864. The process was conceived as a way to prevent wine and beer from souring. Mostly, commercial-scale...

The Bactrian camel (Camelus bactrianus), is a large even-toed ungulate native to the steppes of eastern Asia. The Bactrian camel has two humps on its back, in contrast to the Dromedary, also known as the Arabian camel, which has one. For a memory aid the B of Bactrian can be imagined as a graphic of two humps and the D of Dromedary can be imagined as a graphic of one hump. Nearly all of the...

The yak (Bos grunniens) is a longhaired humped domestic bovine found in Tibet and throughout the Himalayan region of south central Asia, as well as in Mongolia. In Tibetan, the word yak refers only to the male of the species; a female is a dri or nak. In most languages, which borrowed the word, including English, however, yak is usually used for both sexes. Wild yaks (subspecies B. g. mutus)...

Habitat The reindeer is distributed throughout a number of northern locales. Reindeer are found throughout Scandinavia (including Iceland); in Finland; at Spits Bergen; in Russian Europe including Northern Russia and Novaya Zemlya; in Russian Asia, to the Pacific Ocean; in North America on Greenland, Canada and Alaska. In 1952 reindeer were re-introduced to Scotland, as the natural stock had...