Every established farmer or homesteader is going to hear it sooner or later. That innocently asked question from a novice homesteader or member of the public that calls for a quick barnyard sex education talk.
Jane Bell of Tide Mill Farm got her questions a few years back when a customer asked her why the farm deliberately produced calves if they did not plan to keep them.
Rather than roll her eyes and laugh, Bell used the question as a teaching opportunity and educated her customer on why the farm has an ongoing dairy cow breeding program so they can produce milk year round.
The answer, of course, is dairy cows — or any other milk-producing livestock — will only produce that milk if they are actively nursing their young. And to do that, they must first mate with a male member of their species.
An understanding of the birds and the bees when it comes to animals on a homestead is crucial for the health of the animals and for the sanity of the homesteader. Left to their own devices, livestock and poultry will mate unchecked. The results can range from overcrowding to barnyard incest.
“I always bring it back to basic biology,” said Rachel White, sustainable agriculture and livestock educator at University of Maine Cooperative Extension. “I am a very scientific person.”
Dairy cows, for example, are doing as nature intended. Like every mammal, new cow mothers produce the milk their young need to survive. As long as the calf is given a healthy diet by the dairy farmer, it’s going to wean off its mother long before the cow stops producing milk.
That excess milk is what the farmer collects to sell.
Chickens are another barnyard resident that can cause some sexual confusion among humans. If it’s eggs you are after, female chickens, known as hens, are perfectly capable of getting the job done on their own.
No roosters required.
Again, it all comes down to biology.
As in humans, hens produce eggs in their reproductive tracts. Unlike in humans, the chicken eggs go through multiple steps before the final stage where the hard shell is formed. Once the shell is complete, the hen lays the ready-to-eat egg.
The only time a rooster would enter the equation is if instead of eating the egg, you want to get chicks to raise. In that case, the rooster would mate with the hen and fertilize that egg.
“It’s really basic biology 101,” White said. “Relating it to humans is a good place to start and then bring it around to the different [animal] species.”
As far as people not knowing how livestock biology works when it comes to the byproducts of reproduction, White said those folks are not to blame.
“I think it’s a matter of exposure — or lack of exposure to farm animals,” she said.
White stressed that livestock sex education is an important part of animal husbandry, specifically familiarity with barnyard birth control combined with a solid plan for the offspring.
“If you intend to breed or have your animals reproduce for a purpose, make sure that purpose is not just having cute babies,” White said. “Have a plan for those offspring.”
Excess calves at Tide Mill, for example, are sold or rehomed to other farms or homesteads.
Some farms in Maine opt to process the 16-to-18-week-old dairy calves into veal, especially male calves that serve no purpose other than breeding on dairy farms.
Without a plan for livestock or poultry offspring, it can be easy for a homestead to become overwhelmed with increasing numbers of unwanted critters that need food and care.
Depending on the species of the animal, those numbers can grow quickly and exponentially as the offspring reach sexual maturity. If left unchecked, they can start mating with each other.
Luckily, it’s easy to avoid that, White said.
Any male mammal can be castrated so it can’t impregnate a female. At the same time, females can be sterilized by removing the ovaries and uterus. These procedures are commonly called neutering and spaying, respectively.
Keeping the boys separate from the ladies is also a good idea if you don’t want unplanned pregnancies among livestock. Different fenced pastures, separate areas in barns and keeping a close eye on them is a good strategy.
But even the most observant and careful homesteader can be caught unaware when the livestock heart wants what it wants.
“Unplanned breedings happen to the best shepherds and farmers,” White said. “You think you have done everything right, and all of a sudden someone shows up pregnant.”
