Minggu, 26 November 2017

Top Five Tips For Successful Alpaca Farming

Alpaca farming is both a lucrative and rewarding lifestyle. These incredible little animals not only provide excellent companionship to the families who own them; but are also an excellent source of income as their long, soft wool is highly prized in the textile industry. In this article we've brought you the top five tips for successful alpaca farming which will help you to make the most of your farm.

Keep Your Alpacas Social - One of the most important things about alpaca farming that you need to know is that alpacas are extremely social animals. When you initially begin purchasing alpacas for your farm, you need to make certain that you buy them no less than two at a time. In their natural environment, alpacas tend to live in family groups, with an alpha male and female leading the herd; so if you only purchase a single animal at a time, you run the risk of your first alpaca becoming aggressive when others are introduced.

Never Leave Alpacas Haltered Or Tied - As alpacas are never used as pack animals due to their size, there's rarely a need for them to be haltered or tied. If you should need to halter your animal, or tie them for routine care, be sure that you remove the restraints as soon as you are finished. Many people do not realise that alpaca farming actually creates a more dangerous situation for these gentle beasts, as if they are tied or haltered they can become caught on a protruding tree branch, resulting in a broken neck. Also, if you fail to remove your alpaca's halter, you run the risk of your alpaca's skin growing over the straps and causing deformities.

Deworm Your Alpacas Regularly - Another thing that is important to remember when you begin alpaca farming is that alpacas are extraordinarily susceptible to internal parasites and worms. Because of this, it is important that you regularly deworm your alpacas to help ensure their health stays at its peak.

Provide A Cool Place For Your Alpacas - Did you know that the areas where alpacas naturally live are cool and humidity free? An alpaca's wool is so thick that they don't handle the heat and humidity very well at all, and many animals will become aggressive during heat stress, and can even die from the exposure. Providing a place for your animals that is air conditioned so your alpacas can get in from the heat is an important part of alpaca farming.

Keep Pastures Free From Debris And Equipment - Last but not least, one of the most important things about alpaca farming you need to understand is that alpacas are extraordinarily curious animals. Because of this, they will naturally want to explore any equipment and other debris left in your pasture areas. Make sure that all alpaca farming equipment is removed from pens and other areas where your animals will frequent, in order to prevent them from chewing on sharp edges and hurting themselves, or getting tangled


Senin, 13 November 2017

How to Raise Cattle - 6 Tips You Can Start Off on Raising Cattle

Many people nowadays see the potential of raising cattle and have sought out numerous books, guides, and instructional materials on how to raise cattle effectively for profit. If you're one of these cattle farmers or cattle enthusiasts who is planning on setting up his or her own cattle farm, it is important that you have a very clear objective as to what type of cattle you're going to raise, how much are you willing spend/invest, what your available resources are and how you can cultivate them, and the like. Before anything else though, it is important to know what kind of cattle you will be raising before learning how to actually raise the animals. Are you planning on breeding and selling beef cattle, dairy cattle, or grass-fed cattle?

For this article, learning how to raise cattle, particularly grass-fed cattle, is going to be the focus of the article for several reasons. First, raising grass-fed cattle has many benefits on the part of the farmer, one of which is that it is cost effective and the cows are normally easy to handle since the staple food is the grass around them. If you have a ranch that is filled with good greenery, this type of cattle will surely do you well. On the part of the consumers, grass-fed cattle produces some of the best meat since they don't have any growth hormones in them, the cows are normally stress-free, and gather many nutrients from the food they eat. So if you are well-equipped and have learned how to raise cattle then you will surely benefit from your herd. To start off, here are some tips on how to raise cattle:

    Before learning how to raise cattle, make sure to look and select cattle breeds that thrive on grass.
    Once you have your starter herd, always make sure to provide fresh grass and legumes for lots of nutrients.
    If you think it necessary, you can supplement the cattle's food with plant proteins. Remember that cows normally need 11% protein in their diet.
    During the late summer season, you can add starch protein since plant proteins drop during this time.
    Cows can become ill once in a while, so when this happens, provide antibiotics that are of a low level to avoid any health problems for your cows.
    When feeding your herd/s, rotate pastures in order for the cattle to constantly eat fresh grass. You can also send out chickens (if you have) while the cows are grazing to help fertilize the area.




Minggu, 29 Oktober 2017

Tips on Building a Homemade Compost Bin For Red Wigglers

When you're building a homemade compost bin for Red Wigglers, you have to take some factors into consideration. First of all, the bin must be easy to use; second, it has to be efficient in a way that will insure a safe and healthy atmosphere for raising Eisenia Foetida. The process of building homemade compost bins can be fun and won't take more than a couple of hours to finish in the best way possible. The key factor in making compost bins is to use materials that provide ventilation, retains moisture and heat resistant. These factors are very essential to keep the Red Wigglers in top shape.

The Ideal Compost Bin

The ideal compost bin has to be easy to assemble and easy to pack away, this way you can easily move the Compost Bin from one place to another if needed, or moving it to a place where temperature conditions are favorable for the Red Wigglers. Another crucial feature to consider is the compost bin dimensions; the width, length and height dimensions to suit your chosen location and the shape of the area:

- Can O Worms - 20 inchs in dia. and 18 inchs tall.
- Worm factory - 15 inch X 15 Inchs X 20 Inch
- worms ranch kit - 20 inchX 20inchX X14

This has to be taken care of to ensure that the building or making homemade compost bins will end up containing all the pile you have.

The Efficient and effective materials in building homemade Compost Bins are hemlock boards. The design of the compost doesn't have to be complex at all; a simple design with the required materials and the standard dimensions will do the trick. Some designs will entail that the boards won't be attached by glue or nails, instead they can come together by cutting the corners at both ends of the board and making tabs. When all the boards are made this way, it can be easily disassembled to be moved or harvest composts. Building homemade compost bins this way will be very easy and won't cost too much at all.

Compost Bin Materials

After you finish building homemade Compost Bins comes the part where you have to choose the best materials to fill up the pile. The garbage you put into the compost can differ, but the best materials can be mud soil, dead leaves, cut or dead grass, and vegetable or fruit wastes from your kitchen. These wastes are considered to be the best environment where Eisenia Foetida can have a normal and healthy life. You have to know that building homemade compost bins will benefit your soil, farm or any garden in the best way imaginable, as they enhance soil texture, improves fertility, and increase the ability of the soil to keep water and air for more effective plantation.

The most important thing after you finish building a homemade compost bins is keeping good care of the pile. You can do this by watering the pile more often and feed the Red Wigglers which will grow and breed inside the bile. Those are the two most important things to keep in mind when keeping a compost bin with Red Wigglers. Water the pile to be like a swamp or a sponge. Feeding can be by supplying the pile with green, like grass, and brown, like dead leaves, materials. Making homemade compost bins for Red Wigglers for your farm or garden can be the best thing that you've done to optimize soil fertility and the greenest way to do it. It will also help the environment in the short run and even to the long run.


Kamis, 12 Oktober 2017

How to Farm Mushrooms

Farming mushrooms can be a great way to break into the world of farming. Mushrooms are used in a lot of gourmet dishes and are demanded by personal chefs and restaurants everywhere. You can easily start your own farm, all you need to do is follow these few steps and you will be on your way to making money off of your background fungus.

1. You need to know for sure what kind of mushrooms you want to go. There are hundreds of different kinds of burgeons. You should research on what mushrooms are in high demand and go from there. You also want to research to make sure you don't farm mushrooms or try to sell any farm mushrooms that could potentially hurt or kill someone. Not all mushrooms are edible just like any other food and you shouldn't ever try to eat them yourself without knowing what it is that you are about to eat. Be careful.

2. Mushrooms can be farmed just about anywhere, but since they sprout up in bunches you want to have an area set aside specifically for them. There are many different companies that are into farm burgeons and they can help provide you some tips to help you start growing your farm burgeon and also help you gather them and get them ready to be sold. Before you start farming you should look into getting some information from one of these companies.

3. Do a lot of market research. You need to know what you need to be able to supply and how much you may be asked to supply of your grange mushrooms. If you don't have enough or too much this can be bad for your business. You need to know how much your farm burgeons supplies are going to cost you and how much you can possibly make off of your mushrooms. You don't want to be somewhere where you will not make a profit or too little of a profit. Plus you also need to know how to get the supplies and how much of them you are going to need of the supplies when you are about to start growing farm burgeons.

4. The last step is to complete your farm mushroom ranch by making it into a legit and complete business. You need to have farm hands that will help you take care of and harvest your farm mushrooms, an accountant that will handle the billing and all other financial information on the farm burgeons, and brand development teams that will help create your farm mushroom brand.

After you follow these few steps, you will have started your own mushroom farm.You will be providing people with a high quality food product that will be used to enhance the flavors of many dishes that are commonly used around the world and will have done it all from your own backyard. This is a great start if you are trying to break into the farming business and don't know how to get started.



Sabtu, 30 September 2017

Raising Sheep For Profit - Tips on Housing, Feeding, and Handling to Help You in Keeping Sheep

In order to know how to raise sheep the right way, it is important to first find out your reasons for wanting to raise sheep in the first place. There are many possible reasons. Sheep are raised to improve agricultural landscapes; livestock grazing is known to control vegetation and preserve open lands. Some people raise sheep to enhance the lifestyle they are accustomed to. They want their children to learn animal husbandry, plant cultivation, and different facets of the rural way of life. But sheep are commonly raised on ranches and farms for one specific purpose: to generate income.

Raising sheep for profit is not as hard as it seems. Given tried and tested techniques, even someone new to the entire thing can do it right. The trick is to divide the most basic and most important aspects of rearing sheep for profit, such as housing, feeding, and handling.

Housing

Traditional barns are the most common choice for housing when raising sheep for profit. While they may be costly, they are known to give the best kind of protection for the sheep, the feeds, and the equipment. A hoop house, which adopts a greenhouse design, is a cheaper alternative. It is necessary that your chosen sheep facility be situated on elevated ground. It must have good drainage, electricity, an open side that can be accessed conveniently for deliveries and trash collection (including manure, dirt, and excess feeds), and wind protection.

Feeding

When raising sheep for profit, you have to invest in feeders. They make feeding your sheep a lot easier. If you feed on the ground, your sheep are likely to urinate or defecate in the feed and contract diseases, and you're likely to suffer from wastage. Feeders, on the other hand, promote efficient feeding and prevent the development of parasites. Choose the type of feeder that best suits your needs, and make sure to clean them after every feeding. Invest in hay, which are best given in bulks, and mineral feeders, which provide additional nutrients to your sheep. Offer clean, still water in gallons.

Handling

Sheep are very tame creatures. They strive in an environment that follows a routine and is peaceful. Keep your sheep together to foster a sense of home. The more comfortable they are, the healthier they will be - and this translates to profits.


Selasa, 05 September 2017

Tips for Organic Farming

I really surprised myself by becoming involved with organic farming just if you are short years ago, and boy am I glad that I did. I was going through some tough times in my little home. I live in a small ranch style house in the California country, attempting to make a living as a handyman. Work turned out to be a little more scarce than I first had anticipated and times call for a little belt tightening to say the least.

I got a book on organic farming, figuring that if I grew my own food, it would help things along for me. My feeling was that I would use up some of my increasingly abundant free time, save some money on food, and perhaps best of all, began eating more healthy diet. Once more, it would give me a sense of pride. Having something to do keep your mind sound and your spirits from sinking.

I actually have been consuming organic farming for for quite some time, but never really gave it much thought. I guess that I still don't in some ways. I was doing it in such a small scale that I had no idea how huge in industry organic farming really had become. The large corporate farming interests have to find ways to grow huge fields of the same crop, and they can afford expensive measures to control pests without using any unnatural pesticides. I was again a little different in this respect in that I did not have the expertise or resources to fight the little varmints, so I had to get clever so that my organic farming would not be compromised.

The first thing I had to deal with or slug. Did you realize that peer works great for getting rid of slugs? They are attracted to the liquid itself but are then ironically drowned in it. What you might not realize until you try organic farming, is that there are always more slugs out to ravage your crops. You wouldn't believe how much of the pain in the butt these little fellas are. But I found that they weren't even the worst of it. Little bunny rabbits or a huge threat to my organic farming venture. You see, unlike my neighbors,

I never have sprayed my lawn, so I have always had a family of cute little bunnies living in my yard. But there are two things bunnies are known for, and the lesser known one is equally impressive. You wouldn't believe the voracious appetites on these little guys and gals. As for carrots, it's not fiction, they really do love them. Organic farming is wonderful but you had better be prepared to roll up your sleeves and put in the work.