Chronicle Editor
Farming Issues with Mhlupheki Dube
IT’S that time of the year when livestock farmers make a conscious decision to invest in their herds. It is also a time when livestock breeders get to reap rewards of their sweat and blood. Traditionally the month of October and November provides livestock farmers with two production sales where buyers go and battle it out, furiously bidding for the pedigree animals on offer.
As I write the dates for the two major breeding stock sale for those in cattle ranching, are out with one coming about two weeks from now and another somewhere during the second week of November. I will obviously not share the dates here because I have no intention to gift these fine breeders with free advertising!
However, I will motivate once more for our livestock farmers especially those with commercial herds scattered across the communal lands. We have lamented before and we continue to lament the frame sizes of animals in communal areas especially in Matabeleland North Province.
While I am very conscious of the drift from producing animals with very large frames because of the continuously shrinking rangelands and the changes in climatic conditions, the current very frame sizes for most smallholder communal farmers are simply pathetic and set the farmer for a disappoint meant each time he/she goes to the market.
The frame sizes of the animals need to be shifted towards the middle zone and nothing does that better than investing in a good bull. Admittedly, bull management is a mission and nothing brews conflicts better than a bull in a communal set up during the farming season.
A bull tends to wander around following up and cows and heifers seeking its service and after a good day in office, it invariably strays into a field or two and treats itself to a good meal of thriving crops in the field!
The result is running battles between the bull owner and the crop field owner. In some extreme cases instant justice is meted on the bull and it is not unusual to see it limping home, crippled for life and never to mount again. At that point you have no bull anymore. The paradox of it is that your US$3 000 worthy bull is axed and crippled for nibbling on crops in a field which will barely harvest two bags worthy a combined value of US$30! Why not just claim the value of crops from the bull owner instead of axing a bull which is doing a service to the whole village for free?
Be that as it may, I say to the serious livestock farmers even from communal areas “Go yea out to the market and get yourself a good bull and you will never regret the decision”.
There is no better timing than getting your bull right at the end of the dry season which means even if you need to feed it, that will be only a few weeks before the onset of the rains.
Our natural breeding season always coincides with the season of plenty in the veldt and that is from December to March, which means when you get your bull end of October, it allows it time to settle in, in your herd and when the heat season comes around end of January and February, your bull has settled in and he now knows his way around the rangeland.
By November 2024 you will begin to get fruits of your investment and live happily ever after. I will not go into the intricate details of bull selection or even bull management, we have covered that before.
I just wish to motivate a farmer or two to find it worthwhile to fork out US$2 000 plus just to buy one animal, with a singular intention of improving the entire herd. Go out on the dates that you will find for yourself on various media platforms, and be a man, bid furiously to take your choice of a bull home and thank me later! Uyabonga umntakaMaKhumalo.
Mhlupheki Dube is a livestock farmer. He writes in his own capacity. Feedback [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> cell 0772851275
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