The Sunday News
Mhlupheki Dube
A CASUAL discussion on a social media platform and a subsequent physical conversation with one Brahman stud breeder, inspired this article.
The farmer in question posted on a social platform about how his stockmen had neglected to carry out their duties in the agreed laid down way and that had contributed to the farmer losing his heifer to snaring within his farm. Apparently, the helpers had neglected to do a daily census as they are supposed to and the farmer himself had also overlooked to do the same.
As a result, the unfortunate heifer was discovered at least four days later decomposing.
The thrust of the discussion was whether the stockmen should be punished for this act of negligence and be made to pay for the loss.
Naturally there were opposing arguments with some contributors preferring a softer diplomatic approach while others were more inclined towards a hardline punitive stance.
I later on met the farmer and we picked up on that subject and he had an interesting perspective to share. He says some time ago he lost two male calves due to helpers’ negligence but he let it slide at that particular time. Fortunately, the helper stayed on the job long enough until contemporaries of those calves were now young bulls at two-and-half years.
These young bulls were put on the market going for US$3 000 each. At the end when only two young bulls were left for sale, a buyer came looking for three bulls. They could only supply him with two.
So before the buyer had left, the farmer called that helper who had been around since the birth of those young bulls. He reminded him of those two calves which had died because of negligence and he said to the stockman “your action two-and-half years ago has just cost me US$3 000 today.”
The aim was to make the stockman realise the value of the loss in actual monetary terms. This is what I wish to amplify and share this week.
It is a fact that calf mortality is one of the key farm management indicators that need to be kept at bare minimum.
However, most farmers tend to be lukewarm about losing a calf or kid, preferring to downplay the loss. This is the beginning of a big problem, if you give your stockmen an impression that losing a calf or goat kid is a negligible loss, they will always take calf management lightly because “it’s just a calf”.
You need to impress upon your stockmen that when you have lost a calf, you have lost that US$3 000 we alluded to above! It should never be business as usual when a calf has died or a kid has been lost to predators.
The same apprehension and fear that gripped you when you let your cattle stray into a neighbour’s field while herding cattle as a boy, should be the same fear that visit your stockmen. You knew the consequences of letting animals stray onto neighbour’s field, invariably there was hell to pay! Your calf cannot die and your stockmen walk around smoking and proudly puffing the fumes into the air.
They even go to the local business centre for an evening jive and drink! While I accept that you need to balance between being too hard to the extent of driving your employees away and leniency, I am of the firm view that your stockmen should know the value of the loss you have incurred due to their negligence.
It is actually not a bad idea to make them pay for the loss through various means possible. An example of the way to make them pay is to temporarily suspend some benefits that you used to provide to them. So when you lose your twin goat kids because your guys left the doe to spend the night in a predator infested bush, take corrective stern action because you have just lost a combined R2 000.
Let your guy know that his little action has just cost you R2 000 and you are mad about it. It is important, however, to highlight that not every calf or kid death is due to stockmen negligence and such cases which are clearly beyond the control of anyone should be excluded from the punishable ones.
Uyabonga umntakaMaKhumalo.
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