What are the disadvantages to the farmer when breeding animals intensively?

Answer 1

The primary disadvantages are the costs associated with the health of the herd. The producer may experience cows that can go down with milk fever or ketosis, or have to have some animals that require C-sections because a female was bred to the wrong stud and ended up with some larger offspring to birth out than was intended.

Other disadvantages include increased number of females that are needed to be bred at the same time, which often require AI, because the costs of keeping a sire is too expensive in relation to the costs required to care for, manage and feed females livestock. Mix-ups, like what was mentioned above, due to human error, are also concerns. Record keeping is a must, and can be a bit tedious if they aren't kept up to date. Special facilities must be built to separate females that are needing to be bred from those females that are pregnant and those that are birthing (this is especially true in swine housing). For dairy cows, this is also the same, with an additional facility or corral needed to house cows that are drying up before they have a calf, and for those that are being culled and sold off the farm. Costs in building and maintenance can stack up, as a result.

Another disadvantage is that, in intensive production, one person can't do all the work, so more money must be handed out for hired labour to help with the care, breeding and birthing of livestock. The producer expects his hired hands to do what he expects them to, but there are many instances of hired hands slacking off or doing something that they're not supposed to. This is a big risk the producer has to take when hiring people to help him raise his livestock.

So all in all, the main disadvantages a producer faces when breeding and raising livestock intensively are vet bill costs, maintenance costs, record keeping, and risk of hiring the wrong people for the job.

Answer 2

Ethics is the primary disadvantage associated with intensive farming. Many people who see animals raised in confinement believe that the animals are being mistreated and abused in some way because they are not allowed to live as they naturally would outside of the barn. They also think that animals are "overcrowded" even though the space requirements for each animal in a confined area is sufficient for animal comfort and welfare standards in comparison with animals being raised out-of-doors.

In regards to crop production, much fossil fuel, man-made petroleum-based fertilizers and relatively heavy-use of pesticides must be used to grow crops in an intensive way. This is regardless what the crops are going to be sold and used for: feed, human food, ethanol, oil production or for other industries.

Answer 3

[1] Advantages tend to be identified as greater efficiency, higher yields, increased profits, lower prices, and wider audience. In terms of the latter, the benefit is seen as greater availability of cheaper priced healthy food for the poor. [2] Disadvantages tend to be identified as overcrowded and unsanitary living conditions for animals; higher chemical, labor and watering inputs; greater environmental degradation [especially in terms of eroding and exhausting soils and polluting air and water]; and declining health. In terms of the latter, the negative is seen as greater toxic exposure in production and processing.

Another advantage of intensive farming is that if every one were to just use oragnic farming then there would not be enough food for everyone in the world it wiuld be impossible to get the space needed to grow this many crops.

Answer 4

More offspring can be produced on a greater scale, in sometimes a shorter period of time. Some intensive breeding operations make the breeding and birthing season shorter, enabling a shorter period of time that females are able to birth out, making, in some ways, less work for the producer. Shorter breeding and birthing seasons allow the producer to make the females cull themselves out: those that are infertile, or don't come back into estrus sooner, or calve, lamb, farrow, foal or kid out later than others. Shorter breeding seasons also allow females to often be AI'd all at once. Embryo transfer can also be used in intensive breeding operations, allowing more offspring to be born at once from several ET surrogate females. Profit for producers increase because of the higher fertility rates in his herd or flock allow him to breed higher quality females and males, and sell the lower quality stock to slaughter. Improvements are often seen when the offspring to these higher fertile females are used. Profit can also be made when selling breeding stock to other producers; the better quality the breeding stock being sold, the better price they will go for.