Classification Of Farm Animals

Walk into any livestock market in Nigeria, whether it is Kara market in Lagos, the Bodija cattle market in Ibadan, or a poultry stall along the Kano to Zaria road, and you will see animals sorted long before a single kobo changes hands. Cattle stand in one pen and chickens in another, goats are sold by count and eggs by the crate, because farm animals are not one interchangeable mass of livestock. They fall into groups, and the group an animal belongs to decides how it is fed, housed, bred and sold.

In this lesson you will learn the ways WAEC expects you to sort farm animals: by the design of their stomach, by what they are kept to produce, by how and where they are reared, and by how long a species has been part of organised Nigerian farming. The stomach split, monogastric against ruminant, is the one every other topic in this subject leans on, from digestion to nutrition and feeding, so master it first and the rest of the syllabus gets noticeably easier.