Livestock & Dairy

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  • Caring for Rams Beyond Breeding Season

    How to care for a ram once your breeding season has ended.  It is winter right now and your breeding season has probably ended. What should be done with your ram or rams? According to the questions I receive, the first inclination of people is to remove the ram from the flock. My advice is to leave the ram with the ewes after the official…

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  • Beef Handling and Feeding Equipment Considerations

    In part three of our “What’s Your Beef?” series on raising cattle on small farms, we help you answer the questions of how to safely and efficiently feed and handle large beef cattle.  This is the third installment in a multi-part series on raising beef cattle on the small farm. Previous installments can be viewed in the Summer and…

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  • NYS Livestock Industry Poised for Growth but Impacted by COVID-19

    The Cornell Small Farms Program contributed to a Cornell CALS white paper on COVID-19 impacts on food and farming, offering insight on the livestock industry.  The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted individuals, families, communities, and businesses throughout New York state, and continues to do so. In an effort to detail the impact of COVID-19 on selected agricultural sectors, experts from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences…

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  • New York Organic Dairy Market: The Silver Lining to the Dark Cloud of COVID-19

    With more than 600 dairies, New York has more organic dairies than any other state.  Four months have passed since the COVID-19 pandemic caused a shutdown of nearly all aspects of people’s lives. In the food markets, the shutdown impacted everything from production to processing as well as how consumers purchased their food. Even though…

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  • Watering the Flock

    How to provide drinking water for sheep. If you have sought any sort of consultation in how to set up a grazing system for sheep, you will likely have been advised to lay waterlines to provide drinking water to the flock. In this article, I will lay out an alternative way to accomplish the same without going…

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  • Selecting a Beef Cattle Breed

    In part two of our “What’s Your Beef?” series on raising cattle on small farms, we help you answer the questions of what breed of beef cattle you should get.  In the first article in this series in the summer edition of SFQ, I outlined several of the many topics with which you need to become familiar with if you…

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  • There are Many Ways to Solar Graze

    In part two of our “Solar Grazing“ series, learn more about the different options for solar grazing and its potential profitability.   Our last article offered a definition of solar grazing and a basic outline of what’s involved. Now we’ll cover a little more detail about different ways to get into solar grazing, including as an independent contractor, leasing…

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  • What’s Your Beef?

    So you think that you would like to raise some beef cattle on your small farm? This is the first installment of a multi-part series of articles on raising beef cattle on the small farm. In this series of articles in the Small Farms Quarterly, I will outline many of the topic areas that you…

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  • Guardian Dogs for Sheep

    Guarding means that the dog views the livestock as members of its own pack.   In 2011, I wrote an article for the Small Farms Quarterly about “Livestock Guardian Dogs.” In the past nine years I gained many additional insights and had new experiences, which I want to share in this new article. A heavy…

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  • A Brief History of the Pig in the United States

    From a few pigs brought over on a ship to the estimated 5 million pigs currently residing in the U.S., we explore the brief and fascinating history of how and why the hog has become an integral part of our agricultural landscape and why there has been a resurgence in demand for pasture raised pork.…

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