What are the advantages and disadvantages of free range livestock production?

Answer 1

Advantages:

• You have freedom to select how uniform your herd is, based on breed, conformation, temperament, and breeding ability
• You can be as picky as you want when it comes to buying new cows or heifers for your herd, as well as the herd bull you need for your females
• Cows can be raised in areas where there is moderate to poor-quality forage available
• You have the ability to judge whether the cows you own are going to be labour intensive or not, based on calving ability and feed efficiency
• You get to experience the joy of birth every calving season
• You have the ability to set what time of year your cows will be calving, breeding and weaning based on your location, your philosophies, your location's growing times/season, and your goals for your operation, whether you are striving to have a low-cost, grass-fed cow calf operation, or a high-quality purebred operation.
• You have the ability to cull cows and/or bulls at any time of the year you wish, depending on how desperate you are to get certain animals off of your hands.
• Cows are a great tool to use when you want to find ways to extend your grazing period that you couldn't if you were backgrounding steers: crop-residue grazing, stockpile grazing and swath grazing are examples that great to make use of because it utilizes cows that are pregnant but dry and in a time period of their gestation cycle when they are not in need of high quality forages, like what is needed for growing animals.
• You are working with the same cows and bulls 24/7/365
• You are selling the calves that the cows produce, so you are not buying the calves then selling them later on like you would with backgrounding cattle.

Disadvantages:

• Planning and attention to detail is needed if you want to strive to have the best cow-calf herd in your area
• Records of calving, breeding, weaning, and health must be kept all the time
• Not for those who don't like the extra work or find it too demanding to do, especially if they are just starting or don't have any knowledge of culling those that are causing you to work harder than you should or want to
• Can only stock half the animals in your pasture than you would if you were backgrounding cattle instead
• You are working with the same cows and bulls 24/7/365
• Bulls can be hard on fences if you don't have enough cows to keep them happy
• You are responsible for tagging, vaccinating and castrating calves
• You need to have a good sound health and feed program to avoid losing calves and cows to disease and/or malnutrition, respectively.
• You need to accommodate feed program and rations according to your herd's reproductive cycle.
• Complacency is easy to get when working with the same cows and bulls every day for every year.

Answer 2

Advantages:

- animals are free to move around as they please

- animals are free to socialize with other animals as they please

- livestock are not fed a high concentrate ration every day, and instead are allowed to roam freely to find their own food to eat

- increased health and welfare of animals

- less labor, machinery, fuel, fertilizer, capital, and even vet costs when animals are being allowed free-range

Disadvantages:

- more land is needed per animal

- higher rate of death loss from predators when animals are out fending for themselves

- much more planning necessary when trying to have the animals graze a certain area for a period of time

- there is a study that animals, especially ruminants, that are fed a less concentrate ration increase expulsion of greenhouse gases like methane.

Answer 3

The advantage in animal production is that they give rise to new beings. The disadvantage is that when not controlled they can overpopulate which will lead to the scramble for resources.