Specialty Animals

The challenges facing specialty livestock are similar to what is experienced by larger livestock (swine, cattle): the ability to produce feed-grain, the quality of pastures and forage crop production, animal health, growth, and reproduction, and disease and pest distributions.  However, due to their typically smaller size, specialty livestock offers opportunity for diversification in the U.S.'s livestock production systems.  A better understanding of the advantageous and disadvantageous of specialty livestock within a region are highly significant with regard to the success of adaptation programs to be implemented in the long run.