The Sunday News
Mhlupeki Dube Farming Matters
THE animal pen fattening concept has attracted a considerable growth of interest especially among communal farmers. This is mainly stimulated by the narrowing of the information gap between rural and town dwellers — thanks to the cell phones. With livestock buyers still treating smallholder communal farmers with contempt and offering pittance prices for their animals, most smallholder farmers are beginning to be inquisitive ask questions about the establishment and are beginning to search for better options and exit points. Hence there is sudden prolific and near exponential growth in interest around feedloting as farmers try to polish up their animals and take them to better paying markets in major cities.
My recent encounter with a communal feedlot was in the Dandanda area of Mzola East ward in Lupane district. This area has huge animals and buyers have always collected them for a song for resale in town at huge profit margins.
This article on pen fattening is therefore inspired by these developments.
The age, sex, mass, breed and cost of animal are important considerations in pen fattening. Young animals usually convert more efficiently than older animals. There are, however, greater variations within an age group, according to type and condition, than between age groups.
Animals in lean condition with good conformation are usually the most efficient. The breed type is currently the single most critical challenge in pen fattening for most smallholder communal farmers especially in Matabeleland North province which has more inferior breeds compared to Matabeleland south. I know the indigenous breeds zealots and enthusiasts will blow a gasket at the use of the term inferior and they will go to town about how important, resistant and fertile these breeds are.
They will talk about genetic diversity and gene pool but the long and short of it is that these breeds simply do not wash when it comes to pen fattening when compared to exotic breeds or crosses.
However, there are characteristics of good feeders which a farmer needs to take into consideration when choosing animals for the feedlot. Sound conformation is one such characteristic.
This ensures that on slaughter they give high yields of carcass with good flesh development in the highly priced cuts.
The general conformation of a ruminant should be that of a rectangular block. It must be broad at the back and loin, have a deep wide chest and well sprung rib cage.
It must have well developed thigh and shoulder muscles. A good feeder has a high degree of muscle development.
Poor feeders do not adapt to intensive feeding and show more development in the forequarters than in the hindquarters and tend to be slab sided.
The rear legs of a good feeder should be pushed apart such that it has a wide stance. The rump should be rounded rather than flat. The animal must have a broad and trim brisket. The shoulders should be broad and the forelegs should be pushed apart. It must have a well-sprung rib cage indicative of the volume of feed that can be taken to sustain growth and development.
When designing feedlots farmers should take the following basic requirements into consideration. Consider drainage, proximity to the feed storage facilities and water supply.
Water source has to be as close as possible to the pens especially when it has to be ferried by wheel barrows and other such means to the pens. Animals will drink between 50-60 litres/day/animal and this can translate into huge volumes of water required as the number of penned animals increases. It can become strenuous to cart more than 600 litres of water per day to the pens especially if the water source is far. There should be water storage facilities which allows for a reserve of 2 to 3 days just in case your water source breaks down. The water trough should allow for ease of cleaning and as far as possible from the feed trough to avoid fouling. The pens should also have a handling race for easy management of animals when dosing, dipping or any such related routine practice.
The pens should allow 11 to 14 cubic metres per animal especially when they are large animals. A feeding space of 30 centimetres per head should be allowed and this can be increased if the animals being fed have long horns, which is the case with many smallholder farmers.
Lastly and certainly not the least local authorities should have levies which promote not prohibit livestock trading. Punitive levies can be very retrogressive especially when it comes to feedlots as farmers would have incurred huge feeding costs and it may prove very difficult for them to contend with astronomical levies.
In one district two giant feedlots are lying fallow as farmers abandoned the pen fattening project in reaction to punitive council levies which are erroneously levied on sellers instead of buyers.
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