Characteristics of Selected Farm Animals

Back to: AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE JSS 1

 

 

Welcome to class!

In today’s class, we will be talking about the characteristics of selected farm animals. Enjoy the class!

Characteristics of Selected Farm Animals

Cattle:

Cattles are also called cows, are the most common type of large domesticated animal. They belong to the subfamily Bovinae.

Cattle are commonly raised as livestock for meat (beef or veal, which are called beef cattle), for milk (dairy cattle), and for hides, which are used to make leathers. They are used as riding animals and draft animals (oxen or bullocks, which pull carts, and other implements). Another product of cattle is dungs, which can be used to create manure or fuel.

Cattle are ruminants, meaning their digestive system is highly specialized to allow the use of poorly digestible plants as food. Cattle have one stomach with four compartments, the rumen, reticulum, omasum, and abomasum, with the rumen being the largest compartment. The reticulum, the smallest compartment, is known as the “honeycomb”. The omasum’s main function is to absorb water and nutrients from the digestible feed. The omasum is known as the “many plies”. The abomasum is like the human stomach; this is why it is known as the “true stomach”.

Cattle are known for regurgitation and re-chewing their food, known as cud-chewing, like most ruminants. While the animal is feeding, the food is swallowed without being chewed and goes into the rumen for storage until the animal can find a quiet place to continue the digestion process. The food is regurgitated (meaning bringing back the swallowed food into the mouth), a mouthful at a time, back up to the mouth, where the food, now called the cud, is chewed by the molars (the grinding part of the teeth), grinding down the coarse vegetation to small particles. The cud is then swallowed again and further digested by specialized microorganism in the rumen.

The gestation period (that is the period of their pregnancy) for a cow is about nine months long, same as that of the human beings.

Terms used for cattle; the male is called BULL, the female is called HEIFER or COW and a baby is called CALF.

Sheep:

Domestic sheep are relatively small ruminants, usually with a crimped hair called wool and often with horns forming a lateral spiral. Domestic sheep differ from their wild relatives and ancestors in several respects, having become uniquely neotenic as a result of selective breeding by humans.

A few primitive breeds of sheep retain some of the characteristics of their wild cousins, such as short tails. Depending on the breed, domestic sheep may have no horns at all (i.e. polled), or horns in both sexes, or males only. Most horned breeds have a single pair, but a few breeds may have several. Uda, west Africa dwarf, Balami are the most common breeds of sheep around us.

Terms used for sheep; a male is called RAM, the female is called EWE and the baby is called LAMB.

Chicken:

A chicken is a bird. One of the features that differentiate it from most other birds is that it has a comb and two wattles. The comb is the red appendage on the top of the head, and the wattles are the two appendages under the chin. These are secondary sexual characteristics and are more prominent in the male. They are monogastric animals, and they can also be used as pets.

Terms used for chicken; the male is called ROOSTER OR COCK, the female is called HEN and a baby is called CHICK. 

Horse:

Horses are also monogastric animals and they can live to be 30 or 40 years of age an acute sense of smell and hearing and can look forward with one eye. They have and backwards with another. That is one reason why they are skittish and sometimes outfit with blinders. They can trot, canter and gallop and reach a speed of 43mph.

 

Horses are adapted to run and they are majorly used for racing, allowing them to quickly escape predators, possessing an excellent sense of balance and a strong fight and flight response.

Terms used for chicken; a male horse is called PONY or FOAL, the female is called STALLION and the baby is called MARE.

 

In our next class, we will be talking about the Importance of Farm Animals. We hope you enjoyed the class.

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