Chronicle Editor
ONE of the least understood issues by most smallholder livestock farmers, is that of animal nutrition. To most smallholder farmers feeding their animals simply involve driving them into the rangeland, regardless of the condition of that rangeland.
The animal has to find something even in an almost empty rangeland and that something must provide all the nutrients required by the animal for its optimal production needs. However, the reality is that rangelands vary not only in quantities of feed that animals are able to obtain but also in terms of the nutrient availability.
As the grass dries up during the dry season, it loses most of its nutritive value especially in the sour veld. This means that even if you are in an area that seems to have a lot of dry grass and animals are able to get enough, you still need to provide nutrient supplementation to make up for the drop in nutritive value of your rangeland.
It is a well-documented fact that most rangelands have a natural deficient of some important minerals and trace elements. These have to be provided through mineral supplementation and correct supplements have to be provided at correct times of the season. Most of our veld have a natural deficiency of phosphorous, an important mineral that is required by high producing and lactating animals.
A phosphorous mineral lick is therefore needed to provide this requirement especially during summer. During this period there is plenty green grass and the animal is getting enough for its energy requirement as well as the protein needs. However, because of the natural phosphorous deficiencies in our rangelands that I have already alluded to, your animals need this mineral lick supplementation to provide for the shortage.
The important thing for farmers to note is that there is a different lick for a different season. It is not just about buying any mineral block like most farmers do, but getting the right block for the right season as there are different mineral demands for your animal depending on the season.
During the lean season which is basically your winter period and the drier months of the year, your veld depreciates both in quality and quantity. What is left on the rangeland is largely the unpalatable and less digestible grasses.
You need therefore to provide a mineral supplement that will help your animals to be able to consume the unpalatable grasses and utilise them.
Therefore, you need to supplement your animals with a mineral lick that provides them with proteins. This is called the protein lick and the protein is provided in the form of urea. These blocks which provide protein, in the form of urea need to be formulated by professional feed manufacturers because if excess is provided, your animals can die from urea poisoning.
The protein blocks help your animal to be able to utilise the highly indigestible and unpalatable material that it is getting from the veld at that time of the year. The protein lick ensures optimal growth of the rumen microbes, micro organisms that are naturally found in the rumen and help the animal to digest the rumen contents.
The population of these microbes decreases during the lean season as the quality and quantity of grass in the veld decreases. A decrease in the rumen microbe population means your animals lose the ability to digest and extract important nutrients from the highly indigestible and unpalatable material from the poor rangeland.
So, the protein lick supplementation will help your animals to utilise even those grasses which they would ordinarily fail to utilise. This helps to improve or maintain your animal condition even when the veld has depreciated.
Another important point to note for farmers is that mineral licks for whatever season, do not constitute a feed but a nutrient supplement that is meant to bridge the deficiency gap of that particular season. An important sign for animals experiencing a mineral deficiency is when the animal exhibits an appetite for strange items, such as rubber, plastic and even clothes. This is usually indicative of a mineral deficiency in its diet and by picking on these strange items it will be trying to extract for the mineral from those objects.
Uyabonga umntakaMaKhumalo. Mhlupheki Dube is a livestock specialist and farmer. He writes in his own capacity. Feedback [email protected]/cell 0772851275
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