Livestock breeding practices

Describe (where possible) the production system components (e.g. crop or livestock health management practices, soil fertilisation methods, crop rotation designs, livestock feeding and husbandry regimes, crop varieties/livestock breeds used) responsible for differences in food quality and safety between production systems ... 

Biosphere A major effect is loss of species diversity. This occurs even within domestic strains of livestock where modem breeding practices have resulted in the loss of entire breeds of livestock. The ultimate loss of domestic diversity occurs when animals are cloned. 

For obvious practical and commercial reasons, the sex attractant(s) of livestock have received considerable attention. In cattle, experiments have shown that bulls responses to sex odors depend on the breeding regimen. Free-ranging bulls with access to cows will prefer to mount a cow that had been scented with urine from an estrous cow to one carrying the urine odor of an anestrous cow. Bulls kept tied up indoors and encountering cows in stalls mount cows indiscriminately (Sambraus and Waring, 1975). 

Of course, systems used in modem, industrial agriculture involve much more intensive management of livestock than is practiced by subsistence farmers. Animals raised on so-called factory farms are typically bred with great attention to breeding lineages, commonly... 

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