5 Ways To Keep Your Farm Animals Healthy

5 Ways To Keep Your Farm Animals Healthy

Taking good care of your livestock has many benefits, especially when you rely on their products for business. There are simple ways you can provide a better environment for them. To keep your farm animals healthy, you need to rely on a variety of tools and common best practices. Make a habit of these methods to ensure your animals feel their best.

Keep Them Clean and Protected

While farm animals can develop and live in almost any environmental conditions, it is important to keep their space clean and free of dangerous materials that could hurt them. When mud excessively accumulates, animals like cows have a hard time standing up because they slip, which could hurt them badly. It is also important to provide shade with a roof or cover for the scorching summer months.

Feed Them Clean

Scientists and farmers work together to understand and develop feeding processes that will benefit farm animals according to their purpose on your farm. Food high in fiber will maintain a good balance and keep most livestock healthy. Meanwhile, some seeds, syrups, and even fruits are good for sheep, goats, and pigs. Water is always crucial, no matter what animals you raise, to keep them hydrated. Ensure the water is clean to prevent harmful bacteria from developing.

Track Their Development

Tracking the way your animals move, how active they are, and how consistently they eat will tell you how they are developing. If you are raising animals for sale, you need to learn the basics about livestock scales and choose one that will help you track growth and weight. This will ensure that you reach your goals while monitoring your animals for any unwanted changes.

Keep Species Separate

Some species act differently and carry different diseases. It is important to keep specific groups of animals together, whether it is at the farm or while transporting them. Doing this will prevent the larger livestock from injuring smaller animals and allow you to keep better track of your flocks and droves.

Monitor For Disease and Quarantine When Necessary

If your animals show signs of injury, distress, or pain, it is essential to address it immediately. In an effort to keep your farm animals healthy, you often need to isolate the ones exhibiting symptoms to avoid potentially spreading diseases. Work with a local veterinarian to ensure your animals are in the best shape possible and learn what signs and symptoms to keep an eye out for.

3 Tips for Keeping Your Caught Fish Fresh

3 Tips for Keeping Your Caught Fish Fresh

Successful fishing requires a combination of the right gear and methods, then a time of trial and error out on the water. Don’t waste all your preparation and work just to let your catch spoil. Make the most of your harvest with these three tips for keeping your caught fish fresh.

Immediately Ice Fish

Putting your fish in ice will help preserve good flavor and prevent the flesh from changing texture. Put ice above, below, and around the fish to maximize the cold surface area. Crushed ice, rather than blocks, will increase the contact between the ice and fish and keep the fish cold more effectively.

Keep your cooler drain open to let the melting ice drain away. Letting the fish sit in water can damage the meat and make it mushy, throwing off the flavor and texture. Be sure to replenish the ice if the levels get low.

Clean the Fish ASAP

The next tip for keeping your fish fresh is to clean it as soon as possible. If you don’t bleed your fish enough or delay gutting it, blood clots can form in the meat.

Rinse the oil from the fish, pat the fish dry, and keep your knife clean between uses to prevent the spread of bacteria. Lay the fish on newspaper and have plenty of newspaper on hand to catch the refuse you’ll clean away.

After removing the scales, cut a V-shape incision into the fish’s belly, carefully avoiding piercing the intestines. Open the fish carcass and remove the entrails. Then, clean out the cavity.

If you want, remove the head by cutting behind the gills. Be sure to clean your cleaning area thoroughly and throw away the newspaper filled with guts, heads, and scales.

Vacuum Seal To Keep Fish Fresh Longer

Once you get home, you can place your fish in the fridge if you plan to cook it in one or two days. Put fish in an airtight container. Frozen raw fish is best eaten within three to six months. One of the best ways to package frozen fish is to vacuum seal it. The vacuum seal will prevent moisture loss and preserve the flavor and texture of the meat.

While a regular vacuum sealer might work, fish has a high water content that can make the process impossible or inefficient. But when you choose a vacuum sealer for fish, you won’t need to worry about the excess moisture. And depending on your device, you can even add a marinade which can improve the fish’s flavor and speed up meal prep when you decide to cook.

If you get a committed fish vacuum, you can also marinate your fish. This will make the fish taste better and aid in meal preparation.

How To Keep Boats and Docks Safe During Hurricane Season

How To Keep Boats and Docks Safe During Hurricane Season

While summer is the start of warmth and sun, you can’t have sunshine without a little rain. Summertime is also the beginning of hurricane season, and there’s nothing more nerve-racking than getting caught in the middle of a storm unprepared.

It may be easy to forget about your property’s outer limits in the midst of preparing your home for inclement weather. Fortunately, this guide can teach you how to keep boats and docks safe during the hurricane season so that your assets suffer minimal damage and loss.

Inspect Your Boat Dock

Your boat dock may not be able to withstand rough and high waters, so you want to inspect the structure and promptly address repairs. Consider contacting a professional to help with piling inspections to ensure they’re in good condition.

Set Multiple Anchors

You would typically anchor your dock during its initial assembly, but your efforts don’t stop there! It would be wise to anchor your boat to prevent swinging during periods of high winds.

You can set two anchors in a linear formation and connect them with a chain or in multiple directions to reduce the size of the waves.

Know Your Coverage

You want to ensure that your boat dock has insurance coverage. It always helps to be familiar with insurance stipulations.

The more understanding you have in regard to your coverage, the fewer surprises you can expect after the storm clears and the dust settles.

Prepare Your Boat

Start by establishing an inventory of things you keep on your watercraft. List contact numbers, including your insurance company’s contact information, and copies of your policy. Afterward, turn off the boat’s electrical system and remove the battery.

Consider removing all detachable accessories, like sails, radios, canvases, and cushions, to prevent damage. Also, you’ll want to wrap protective covering around boat lines to prevent chafing against the watercraft. Lastly, seal off windows and doors, and shut off fuel lines.

While there’s no way to protect your boat completely from hurricanes, it helps to start on the right foot. There may not be much you can do to prevent a hurricane from occurring in your area; however, you can keep your boat and dock safe during the storm season.

Necessary Skills To Learn for Concealed Carry

Necessary Skills To Learn for Concealed Carry

When you start carrying a concealed weapon, you can get overwhelmed by the mountain of information regarding best practices and how to stay on top of your game. Many new owners spend countless hours studying calibers, holster types, how to dress and avoid printing, and similar considerations.

But the most important thing to learn is to handle a concealed firearm with skill and accuracy. Whatever your reasons for keeping a firearm on your person, these are the necessary skills to learn for concealed carry.

1. Drawing Your Weapon

Going to the gun range and firing rounds at targets is fun and sharpens your shooting skills. But you also need to practice drawing your concealed weapon efficiently. A gun you can’t safely and reliably draw and have at the ready is worthless. Not practicing your skills is one of the most common concealed carry mistakes you should avoid.

First, remove all rounds from the clip and chamber. Then practice reaching, drawing, and aiming your firearm. Practice it so often that, in the event of danger, your muscle memory kicks in, and you can defend yourself and others.

2. One-Handed Shooting

Another necessary skill people who carry concealed should learn is one-handed shooting. On the shooting range and in perfect conditions, it can be easy to get caught up in the quest for accuracy and firing that shot right into the center of the target. Most of the time, however, life-threatening situations will be much more complicated. Many new CPC holders fail to practice handling, aiming, and firing a weapon at a fast-moving, close-quarters attacker.

Learn how to aim and fire at targets less than 10 feet away without needing to put both hands on the weapon. You might not be able to use both hands to fire in the case of an emergency. And you won’t always be able to line up the sights and take a perfect shot, so master shooting in these more challenging conditions.

3. Reloading

Finally, in real-life situations in which you will be firing a concealed firearm, the ability to quickly reload your weapon can save your life. It’s easy to forget that, unlike range sessions or backyard practicing, you can miss the target a lot in life-or-death situations due to adrenaline and suboptimal conditions.

Practice reloading your weapon in a crisis by releasing the clip, popping in a new one, and drawing a round into the chamber – all while keeping your eyes on the target. In real life, the target won’t stop coming for you unless you do what is necessary to ensure your gun has enough bullets and those bullets reach the right place.

Types of Silos and Their Benefits in Farming

Types of Silos and Their Benefits in Farming

If you own or work on a farm, you understand how important it is to keep your products safe and stored. Silos are large structures that can hold large quantities of products under the right conditions to avoid problems, but you can also find smaller options. There are different types of silos with particular benefits for farming that will fit the needs of your products; it is important to understand each one’s characteristics to make an informed decision.

Tower Silo

This structure is one of the largest and holds products inside effectively. Depending on what you need to store, you can find or build them with different materials such as wood or concrete. This type is best to have close to the crops for easy storage and somewhere with easy access for transportation. Because they stand vertically, they do not take up a lot of space and keep a low moisture index.

Bunker Silo

Bunker silos come at a low cost with a large volume capacity for storage. Unlike tower silos, this type expands to the sides to take up more land, but you can divide them into smaller rooms. It is necessary to have a tractor to unload and transport the products. Bunker silos require less maintenance and are usually open, providing moisture and more external exposure.

Storage Pile Silo

This is one of the most common and traditional ways to store grains and products. It’s an inexpensive way to keep your farm well organized and ready for the next harvest. With this type of silo, it is essential to keep grains dry to prevent losses; they are ideal for short-term storage but require constant attention and maintenance.

Silo Bags

This method consists in storing your grains or products inside plastic bags that come in different sizes that you can pile on top of each other. This one, out of the different types of silos, allows for flexible and versatile storage with a low number of losses. They require a lot of attention because any possible rupture could damage and affect the whole bag.