Question about Ancient Animal Husbandry

[prani]

Modern day as much as in the good old ancient days, livestock raising is primarily done by farmers who raised livestock along with cultivation of crops, my question is not with regards to those practices.
My question is was there an ancient equivalent of raising livestock in confinement on a large scale , we know nomads in various parts of the world engaged in free range herding, where livestock was left to roam freely in search of pasture. This was mostly done in those region that were grasslands or shrublands where large scale crop cultivation wasn't possible and and where water was available people often grew crops instead of fodder as the crops often doubled as fodder. Were there any attempts on the part of the ancients to raise livestock intensively, in the same manner of raising crops, as is the case in present day?
Was there any society or a section of a society in ancient times that were
a) Settled in a particular location permanently, or semi nomadic at the very least
b) Located in a region that is semi arid
c) Used the limited water resources to grow fodder instead of food crops and actively maintained the pasturelands so that the lands are not over grazed and land not degraded
d) Lived mostly off meat and dairy products obtained from the animals that they raised ( Meat may be obtained from hunting) and traded with farming communities, where water is much more abundantly available near by selling the animals and animal products

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

1) so you're going to pay many, many humans to go out and harvest and bring back crops for animals kept in a barn? Rather than having one or two humans herding the animals around pastures? Sounds like the sort of thing that's only really doable for super high status animals - like special sacrificial animals.
2) putting (and keeping) a whole bunch of animals together is just begging for massive disease outbreaks.

 

[Minchandre]

Modern day as much as in the good old ancient days, livestock raising is primarily done by farmers who raised livestock along with cultivation of crops, my question is not with regards to those practices.
My question is was there an ancient equivalent of raising livestock in confinement on a large scale , we know nomads in various parts of the world engaged in free range herding, where livestock was left to roam freely in search of pasture. This was mostly done in those region that were grasslands or shrublands where large scale crop cultivation wasn't possible and and where water was available people often grew crops instead of fodder as the crops often doubled as fodder. Were there any attempts on the part of the ancients to raise livestock intensively, in the same manner of raising crops, as is the case in present day?
Was there any society or a section of a society in ancient times that were
a) Settled in a particular location permanently, or semi nomadic at the very least
b) Located in a region that is semi arid
c) Used the limited water resources to grow fodder instead of food crops and actively maintained the pasturelands so that the lands are not over grazed and land not degraded
d) Lived mostly off meat and dairy products obtained from the animals that they raised ( Meat may be obtained from hunting) and traded with farming communities, where water is much more abundantly available near by selling the animals and animal products

If you have limited water resources, you're going to want to spend them on growing food for you to eat. The main advantage of cattle etc. Is that they eat the plants freely growing in otherwise unproductive land. They are machines for producing food on land you can't grow crops on.

The kind of intensive meat-growing practiced today is a complete luxury, a way to answer demand for meat as a luxury food in a place where a combination of advanced agricultural techniques, conservation, and the rising cost of labor have made traditional pasturing problematic on the necessary scale.

Did we see, in ancient times, some cattle fed on barley so they'd grow fat and delicious for sacrifice or rich people? Sure. But on a wide scale? Among people already living a marginal lifestyle? No way.

 

[Workable Goblin]

If you have limited water resources, you're going to want to spend them on growing food for you to eat. The main advantage of cattle etc. Is that they eat the plants freely growing in otherwise unproductive land. They are machines for producing food on land you can't grow crops on.

Actually, if you read what the OP actually says instead of just looking at the thread title, all they seem to be asking is whether anyone grew fodder crops on the land instead of food crops and then used that to raise animals. And the answer to this is, in fact, yes--well, sort of. More specifically, four-field crop rotation methods (which admittedly were introduced comparatively recently, but still prior to the Industrial Revolution) include as a critical part of the rotation clover--which is a fodder crop, and which is used to feed animals. In fact European (especially but not exclusively British) agricultural practices from the Middle Ages onwards included quite a lot of deliberate effort to increase animal yields, for example the construction of water-meadows, rather complex irrigation setups intended to increase grass (i.e., fodder) production.

Of course, Europe is not, generally speaking, a semi-arid environment. But what people were doing was decidedly more intensive than merely setting a flock or herd to graze on a natural grassland, too, and I think this fairly answers the OP's question in the affirmative. Plenty of people were quite clearly putting considerable effort not into growing more grain or other directly human-edible food, but rather increasing yields of fodder crops to raise more livestock for various purposes, and while this obviously does not match current intensive meat-raising practices it is clearly following the same trend, much as crop-growing practices at the time were clearly less intensive than modern practices but had the same basic underlying idea of increasing yield.

 

[prani]

Actually, if you read what the OP actually says instead of just looking at the thread title, all they seem to be asking is whether anyone grew fodder crops on the land instead of food crops and then used that to raise animals. And the answer to this is, in fact, yes--well, sort of. More specifically, four-field crop rotation methods (which admittedly were introduced comparatively recently, but still prior to the Industrial Revolution) include as a critical part of the rotation clover--which is a fodder crop, and which is used to feed animals. In fact European (especially but not exclusively British) agricultural practices from the Middle Ages onwards included quite a lot of deliberate effort to increase animal yields, for example the construction of water-meadows, rather complex irrigation setups intended to increase grass (i.e., fodder) production.

Of course, Europe is not, generally speaking, a semi-arid environment. But what people were doing was decidedly more intensive than merely setting a flock or herd to graze on a natural grassland, too, and I think this fairly answers the OP's question in the affirmative. Plenty of people were quite clearly putting considerable effort not into growing more grain or other directly human-edible food, but rather increasing yields of fodder crops to raise more livestock for various purposes, and while this obviously does not match current intensive meat-raising practices it is clearly following the same trend, much as crop-growing practices at the time were clearly less intensive than modern practices but had the same basic underlying idea of increasing yield.

This was i actually meant, my question was based off the livestock of lands that constitute Afghanistan, where lands beyond the mountain valleys were shrubland. But the people of those villages used qanat to grow alfalfa grass, which btw has its origins in Afghanistan before going west, they let their sheep/goat graze on the shrubland while they moved them on to enclosures for the winters where they fed to them the grass they have gathered during the summer and spring. This practice is still followed but has largely been discontinued since qanats are no longer maintained and have fallen into disrepair. They traded horse, wool, hides and diary products with the people of the mountain valleys who largely grow crops and in turn they buy those from them, they have sorta symbiotic relationship and is a effective use of limited arable land as the best ones are used for food crops while low quality ones are used for grazing and lands beyond those are just desert. All said they still drove their herds into the shrubland during summer. This practice is even reference in rig Veda where the semi nomads grew amongst other fodder, barley too. However in south Asia the practice was the opposite they collected the herd for the summer and drove the herd onto the shrubland once the intensity of the monsoon subsided.

Another example that comes to my mind is what is you said about European agriculture during the middle ages where fallow land was turned to pasture so that land can "rest" to restore it's fertility, they usually grew clover but then again Europe is not semi arid as you rightly pointed out.

What i was looking for was a society that decided to raise livestock as intensely as crops through selective breeding (which isn't new) and effective pasture management to adapt to a poor soil and lack of manpower

 

[DingAnge]

I would like to point out that this was done for many years for non-food animal farming, such as silkworm farming, where large amounts of mulberry bushes were grown with minimal return in fruit for silk. While a little outside OPs point, I think it is a worthy inclusion, simply due to the time and effort involved in the farming and processing without a return in food from otherwise excellent farmland. In a PoD, I don't think this is impossible to acheive for more common animals, such as mass-growing clover for animals as well as enriching the soil.

A more extreme example could be encouraging the growth and harvesting of seaweed for animal fodder, near the coast in the UK, many cows are fed in part on free seaweed gathered by part-time workers clearing the beaches. It would be a stretch, but some canoe-sized boats could be sent out with swimers or long nets to harvest this seaweed and use it for that purpose. Whether seaweed could be planted effectively at this point in time is beyond me, as is whether it counts as a crop.

 

[Michael B]

In Von Thunen's book The Isolated State various forms of agriculture form rings around the city. What form of agriculture is practiced depends on the distance from the city.

I don't want go deep into the theory, but horticulture and dairy are practiced in the innermost ring and ranching on the outmost one. Intensive animal raising as proposed would be on the grain growing rings, Thye would have to compete with shipping the grain straight to the city (milled or unmilled) and the ranchers walking their animals to the city. The question is then is it more profitable to convert grain to main and compete with the scrubby ranch animals. If it takes two years to raise an animal to meat then the grain famer gets his returns faster.

There is also the matter of no knowing what next year's harvest is like. If it is poor then the intensive animal farmer could lose out because his costs go up yet market prices for meat stay the same.

The Norse in Norway had this problem in that milch cows were kept outside in the summer and fed on hay in the winter. Too much hay and they could wish that they had not slaughtered so much animals in the autumn. Too little and they lose some over the winter.

 

[Workable Goblin]

I don't want go deep into the theory, but horticulture and dairy are practiced in the innermost ring and ranching on the outmost one. Intensive animal raising as proposed would be on the grain growing rings

Again, what the OP is talking about is not so much raising cattle or sheep on grain that could otherwise be fed to humans, but whether people irrigated or improved pastureland and grew fodder crops there (such as clover, alfalfa, hay, etc.) instead of grain. The difference would only be that the rancher was investing in improving yields per-acre instead of just throwing animals at totally unimproved grassland, so it would take place in the same general areas (i.e., relatively far away from the city).