Turning a lamb into a barbecue is much easier than turning a bull
For many years now, mutton has been the driver of growth in meat prices — today it is 1000-1200 rubles per kilogram. I can’t even believe that in Soviet times it cost 90 kopecks, while wool from a sheep was sold at 3 rubles per kilo. Market realities have turned everything upside down. But why, at such high prices, livestock breeders are not able to ensure the supply of lamb on the market in order to bring down prices and make it affordable for the population? Agrarian officials and scientists have a lot of ideas on this subject, but we decided to ask the opinion of a simple Russian farmer Dmitry Salnikov. Or rather, not quite simple, he managed to work in large companies, study in the USA, and now he is engaged in regenerative agriculture in the Moscow region.
There were about 50 million sheep in the RSFSR. Since the beginning of economic reforms in the country, their ranks have more than halved to 24 million. It was hoped that the rapid growth of the livestock would begin when a private trader, that is, a real owner, came into the industry. In recent years, this area of animal husbandry has become 80% private. But the sheep herd has decreased to 21 million and continues to decrease! What are manufacturers doing wrong? The problems with cattle are understandable, this is a completely different story. Cows and bulls need to be grown, groomed and cherished for a long time. But even beef is cheaper…
— By all accounts, a sheep can be considered a mini-cow . It is lighter, cheaper and pays off faster. For understanding, this is the equivalent: one cow is 5 sheep or goats.
To raise a bull for meat, the cow must first be inseminated, after 9 months it will give offspring, and then feed the calf for another two years. It turns out that you need to wait at least three years for a profit from this business. All this time he needs care, food and so on. In six months, a sheep will lamb with a lamb (or maybe two or three), and after another 6-7 months, the offspring can be taken to a meat processing plant. Money is returned three times faster, and this matters. In addition, it is much easier to turn a lamb into a barbecue than a bull. It may sound cynical, but the lamb is canned on legs, it is easy to score at any moment. What can not be said about the cow.
A separate topic in animal husbandry is insemination. If a farmer has a herd of 10–15 cows, then you’ll think about whether it makes sense to feed a sire bull in the herd for a whole year so that he fulfills his “male duty” 10–15 times a year. Sheep have it easier. On average, 30 females are loaded per ram. If you don’t have your own manufacturer, you can rent it for a while from a neighbor: just bring it in the trunk of a car and then return it back.
— If a pig and a sheep are kept in a pigsty and a sheepfold, respectively, and fed with grain and compound feed, then the costs will be approximately the same. It will take about 6 kg of feed to gain 1 kg of pork, and 9 kg per kilo of lamb. The reason is that pigs are omnivores, while sheep (like cows) are only herbivores. Pigs are more efficient at converting grain feeds rich in simple carbohydrates into meat. Sheep, on the other hand, are best at assimilating grass, which is what they traditionally did.
The sheep is a pasture animal, it must eat grass. On the pasture, she needs only water, and the grass, of course, is free. Therefore, the cost of keeping a pig is much higher. If the pig weighs 200 kilograms, then she ate about a ton of grain and other additives. A kilogram of feed costs between 20-30 rubles.
A sheep, as I said, needs 9 kilograms of feed per kilogram of weight gain — but this is free grass and water. As you can see, their maintenance and cultivation costs are incomparable.
— In the regions of the Caucasus, where lamb is traditionally preferred, health is in order. The Japanese eat fish all their lives — and they also have a lot of centenarians and no deviations. Lamb can have a specific taste, it is believed that its preparation has its own secrets that most Russians do not know about. But in fact there is only one secret. Now they mainly sell lamb meat — the meat of animals aged from 6 to 8 months. And besides, there are meat breeds of sheep with a less pronounced specific taste.
“Unfortunately, not all sheep breeders prefer grazing livestock. For convenience, they keep animals in sheds and sheepfolds, bring them food and various supplements. Which, of course, increases the price of products. Even if a pasture lamb is brought from Dagestan to the Moscow region, it is determined here for further fattening in a sheepfold, where they stand on grain and gain weight faster.
— I agree, there is a huge amount of unused land in Russia. There is a non-chernozem zone, which is risky for agriculture from the point of view of agriculture. However, there is so much grass there that you just have time to mow. Although, as some authorities rightly believe, it is not a person with a lawn mower or a trimmer in his hands who should fight the thickets, but cattle and small cattle.
What is practiced in animal husbandry today? Cows, goats and sheep are fed with grain and its derivatives — in the presence of a huge number of empty fields and meadows. But we drive the cows to the farm, the sheep to the sheepfold, and we pour compound feed into the feeders.
All these farms are invented by man for his own convenience. Producers, on the one hand, are calm about the safety of livestock. On the other hand, they make sure that the animal does not take an extra step and does not burn its calories, which should go into weight gain. But it's not right! On the chain, the animal lives inferior in physiological terms, it develops many diseases.
Put one person on pasta with meatballs, and the other on the Mediterranean diet — and in a short time you will see the difference. Same here.
“Of course, because they are herbivores, they are created in order to pluck grass. Today, their meat is not at all what is commonly considered beef or lamb. It all depends on nutrition. They are grown on relatively cheap grain, which is not so useful for the animal's body.
While the grass remains unclaimed, the earth is increasingly covered with weeds. Drive off the main roads in the regions north of Moscow. Tver, Pskov, Yaroslavl… You won't see a single house there in a few hours, not to mention a village. It's scary to drive at night, not a single light! Although at the beginning of the last century, Russia supplied the famous Vologda oil to Paris. Butter, cream — they were the pride of Russia, where did everything go?
— Sheep, cows — this is the same potential for undeveloped lands to be inhabited and not abandoned. Moscow is one of the greenest capitals in the world, there are many park areas in the city, which is worth only «Losiny Ostrov» … In these places, small cattle should be used instead of mowers and trimmers to fight the thickets.
— In the West, there are firms that work on a contract basis with municipalities. They drive herds of sheep or goats into the parks and they graze in a controlled manner on green grass, destroying weeds. And we stubbornly mow the grass in cities, collect it in plastic bags, take it to landfills, and then we still don’t know how to dispose of plastic bags … How many additional costs: for gasoline, materials, human labor. As a result, the land remains beaten out, nothing grows on it for decades. We are importing the fertile layer…
Some of the work of city services could be taken over by the same sheep. Not only would they naturally create lawns, they would also fertilize the soil.
The fertile layer created over the centuries is the work of herbivores. From time immemorial, millions of herds of bison roamed the American continent, grazing, Saiga, aurochs and other herbivores lived in our latitudes, They ate grass, fertilized it, left manure, which became soil, a many-meter layer of black soil. And there was no global warming, no greenhouse effect,
— The soil layer is a huge carbon storage on the planet, the second largest after the oceans. The one that, when released into the atmosphere, creates CO2, a greenhouse gas. Grass absorbs CO2, animals process it into manure, which fertilizes the grass, it is carried away by bugs and insects on pastures, preventing carbon from returning to the atmosphere. Grass grows faster and animals eat even more grass. This turns out to be a closed cycle and its nature came up with it. From which we, as they say, are reclaiming space.
If animals created the soil layer for us, city services with lawn mowers could find other useful work. And so the dung beetle today in the Moscow region is listed in the Red Book. There is not enough manure for him…
And it would be interesting for the townspeople to meet small cattle in nature, some may not see a sheep or a goat in their whole life. And these are beautiful, cute and curious creatures.
In my opinion, this is very important. Throughout evolution, we have become accustomed to the fact that next to a person there should be not only a cat or a dog, but also cattle. After all, this is our food and we must constantly see, know how they feel.
100 years ago, people knew how their food lived until the moment it became food itself. This gave far less room for any processors to add or bring something somewhere. Everything was in plain sight, no product labeling was required, as it is today. Everything was natural and eco-friendly.
— In large agricultural holdings — yes. But small private industries, peasant farmsteads, remained, in fact, the same! However, they also intercept industrial know-how in the struggle for weight gain and milk yield.
We are cut off from the animals that feed us, only a carton of milk or meat packaging in the store tells us about them — that's the whole connection. Why do many townspeople get horses, rent stalls for them, pay for feed? To come and chat with your friend at least once a week! We lack such communication.
But we create English lawns in a modern way, which, by the way, appeared in England, because sheep breeding was widely developed there, there were no mowers then. And today, on many estates, this work is still done by sheep.
The new king of Great Britain, Charles III, promotes the consumption of lamb in the country. And not lamb, namely lamb, returns the old English tradition. Lamb fat on grass is less refractory, and these animals should eat grass, nothing else.
— The main problem is that in recent years a huge number of documents have been adopted that help officials to “regulate” the process. It is easier for large farms in this regard, they have accountants and lawyers on their staff. And what should small or novice producers do, where is it just “you and me, but we are with you”?
Such farms should encounter “regulation” as rarely as possible, for them all kinds of by-laws little, perhaps even should not be at all. The farmer has too much to do to butt heads with the Rosselkhoznadzor and other regulatory authorities.
Such freedom does not give indulgence to small farms for violating the environment, here the demand must be strict. But in all other respects, the peasant should not take a steam bath, fulfilling various wishes of officials.