Classes and Uses of Farm Animals

Back to: AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE JSS 1

 

Welcome to class!

In today’s class, we will be talking about the classes and uses of farm animals. Enjoy the class!

Classes of farm animals 

Farm animals are the animals that are domesticated by man. The farm animals are kept because they are useful in many ways. Some produce milk, meat and eggs used as food. Another name for farm animals is livestock, and this term concerns only domestic animal. Examples of these animals are camels, sheep, goats, chicken, donkeys, horses, pigs, mules, etc.

Most farm animals belong to the group of vertebrates. The vertebrate animals are characterized by the possession of a backbone or vertebral column.

• Mammals:

These are animals that produce their young ones alive. Examples are sheep, goats, pigs and rabbits.

• Birds:

These are animals that are characterized by the laying of eggs which hatch into their young ones e.g. Chicken. These birds we are talking about here are not the birds that fly in the sky, those that fly are called Aves.

• Fishes:

These are limbless cold-blooded vertebrate animals with gills and fins and living wholly in water. Fishes cannot be regarded as farm animals, but the increasing demand for fish in the diet of man led to the establishment of fish ponds and makes fishery a farming business.

Classification of farm animals based on their digestive system

Firstly, what are digestive systems? These are the systems that allow the break down of the food or feed consumed by an animal or person. Without the work of the digestive system, you eat will not be duly processed which can be harmful to your body system.

• Ruminants:

These are animals that feed on a vegetable matter like grasses and legumes. They are different from US (humans) because we have a single stomach but these set of animals called ruminant are characterized by their possession of single stomach with four compartments called; the rumen, reticulum, omasum, and abomasum, with the rumen being the largest compartment, the reticulum the smallest compartment which 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”.

You might be wondering why a horse is not part of the example given, the reason is simple, Horses are not ruminants because they do not have four stomach compartments but possess a single stomach.

• Non-ruminants or monasteries:

These are animals with a single or simple stomach. They usually feed on concentrates (this means when products like maize, oyster, wheat, bone meal and so on are all mixed and ground together to form a feed) which are usually less fibrous than the feed to ruminants. e.g. Chickens, pigs, dogs, geese, turkey.

Uses of farm animals

Farm animals can be uses for various things, in our day to day life, it helps us in lots of ways. Some of the uses of farm animals are:

• For food. e.g. goats, cows and so on.
• For security protection.g. dogs.
• They are used for clothing. e.g. rabbits’ fur (fur means the hair) and skin of horses.
• They can be used as by-products such as Animal fats, Hides and skins.

Here are some examples below, it will also help you know what most animals are used for.

S/N	ANIMALS	PRODUCT
1	Cattle	Meat, milk, sin for making leathers
2	Fishes	For fish liver oil and fish oil
3	Rabbit	Meat and manure
4	Poultry	Egg, meat, feathers
5	Sheep and goats	Meat, wool for clothing’s

 

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

Should you have any further question, feel free to ask in the comment section below and trust us to respond as soon as possible.

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