Breeding livestock is one of the finest parts of the circle of life. Where there were once two, there can be three or more in a short amount of time. If not for breeding livestock, they all would have died off a long time ago and never been replaced. The entire process is a beautiful and wonderful thing that is extremely helpful to many people. Consider how helpful it is when you can sell your animals to new livestock keepers who are just getting started. The following are a few great ideas that will help you to make breeding your livestock as simple and painless an operation as possible.

Segregate the Males

When a female goes into season, a male is going to pick up on this immediately. If there are several males, they may all try to inseminate the female. In some species, this will begin with a fight if everyone is in the same pen. A wise choice is to keep the males in different pens, so you don't have to deal with the unruly nature of males competing with each other. Another downside to the type of competition many males partake in is that it tends to injure them very badly. You can also avoid this by keeping them away from one another during the time when mating is inevitable.

Choose the Males Carefully

Not every male is going to get to breed. This is a fact of life for almost every species, and it is especially true when you are trying to isolate positive traits and minimize negative ones. While nothing is ever going to be absolutely effective, a great way to ensure that your next generation is a successful one is by making sure only the best males for what you want get to breed with the females. If you allow pairings to happen randomly, you will be faced with random, often undesirable results. Be sure to do everything you can to maximize your desired traits in the offspring by limiting the matings of lesser males.

Time it for the Female's Safety

Every animal has a time when the female should mate and a time when she shouldn't. Typically, there is an age beyond which breeding a female is downright dangerous, both to her and to her offspring. You have to carefully research when this age limit is, and don't try to go around it. If you value your livestock, don't try to squeeze more litters out of them than they can handle.