The Sunday News
AS indicated in my last article we are in the calving season for most smallholder livestock farmers who follow seasonal breeding.
In seasonal breeding, the reproduction is not so much controlled by the farmer but by the environmental conditions, primarily the nutritional condition and status of the animals.
Therefore, most smallholder livestock farmers will have their cows going anoestrus (not coming on heat) during the dry season, only to come back into breeding when the veld condition and nutrition improves after the onset of the rainy season.
Most animals in the smallholder sector especially in communal set ups will be serviced around February and March depending on how early the rains set on that particular area. This makes the calving season for most smallholder livestock farmers to fall between October and November.
Last week I touched on advantages and disadvantages of having your cows calve down during the peak of the dry season. One advantage I forgot to mention is that, you are unlikely to get challenges of scours (diarrhoea) in your calves especially during those dry season months because it’s likely that your cows are not producing a lot of milk because of the poor nutrition conditions in the veld.
You will begin to have scours challenges towards the end of January when the veld is now good and your cows are producing a lot of milk.
Since we are in the calving season I found it prudent that we revisit calf management issues again.
Calf mortality in our country is recorded around 29 percent by recent statistics, against a recommended two percent.
This means as livestock farmers we are losing a lot of calves to death and this is not good for farmers as it means your herd organic growth is affected and so is your annual offtake.
It has to be understood by farmers that your annual offtake, which refers to the animals your sell per year is positively correlated to your calving rates but negatively correlated to your calf mortality rates.
This means the higher your calf mortality rates the lower your annual offtake. You will not have five calves in that year, lose three to death and sell six animals by the end of the year and still remain viable.
In no time you will have closed shop as you will have wiped out all your animals.
It is thus imperative for livestock farmers to deliberately manage for lower calf mortalities, in fact target zero mortality. The reason for calf mortality being poor management, predation, housing and nutrition.
Under calf management there are a number of issues that farmers should guard against. One such issue is competition for milk between humans and the calf. This is a serious problem among smallholder livestock farmers primarily because our cows calve down during the peak of the dry season when we are ourselves are struggling with relish and viola, we have a solution.
We neglect the fact that the cow is not getting enough feed from the veld so it’s struggling to maintain itself and produce sufficient milk for the calf.
Excessive milk results in generally unthrift calves, that is calves which do not appear vibrant and healthy. The calf is starving because you are taking away 95 percent of its ration and hence it looks unthrift.
Predation is a serious cause for calf mortality especially in areas bordering wildlife zones. However, it should be noted that predation is also a management issue, because if you pen your calves in properly protected enclosure and ensure that they don’t sleep in the veld with their mothers you will be reducing predation to almost zero.
The housing part as it relates to calf mortality, is important in so far as protecting the calves from adverse weather conditions.
Too cold and wet conditions can bring all sorts of challenges to your calves including such diseases as pneumonia which can result in mortality.
It is important to ensure that your calves have proper housing which will not expose them to severe weather conditions.
This is even more important in kids and lambs as heavy mortality losses can be incurred due to poor housing.In conclusion therefore, as farmers let’s aim to manage our calf so that it does not only grow into an adult animal but it does so in a healthy and vibrant manner.
Let’s fight to prevent calf losses so that we can both grow our herds in a year and also have something to sell and remain viable.
Your calves are your cash flow and hence it is important to prevent the leakage!
Uyabonga umntakaMaKhumalo
Mhlupheki Dube is a livestock specialist and farmer. He writes in his own personal capacity.
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