[Considerations of the farmer in intensive livestock husbandry on choosing his system of management(author's transl)].

Modern intensive livestock husbandry constitutes an economically inevitable development essential to stock farmers. The decreasing profit margin per unit of produce is inherent in this development. As a result, the income of pig and poultry farmers is very sensitive to fluctuations in prices and, on the other hand, it is considerably affected by seemingly slight rises in cost. The systems of management adopted are therefore designed to keep down the fixed cost of labour and premises as much as possible and reduce the risk. This accounts for intensive livestock husbandry in its current form. This is illustrated in a number of examples. In view of the wide variety of systems within the branches of stock farming and because of the marked variations from year to year and the resulting differences in the importance of measures to be adopted, thorough preliminary studies will be required.