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Posted by
Maendeleo Vijijini
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Investing in dairy farming needs to be done in a cautious manner
in order to optimise efficiency of available farm resources, or, simply
put, to help you do more with less.
Taking
pre-cautions will help you achieve a sound health, good animal welfare,
social responsiveness, high milk production and improved cost control –
all that defines a profitable dairy farm.
Unlock your
dairy farming implies that you start smart as soon as you begin. This is
however built on four simple but very important interlinking pillars:
1. Dairy investment plan
This
is the initial step and the most vital player in getting dairy farming
right. Producing and sustaining high quality milk in today’s competitive
dairy is complex, allowing no room for mistakes, thus more time should
be spent for informed decision making when setting up plans.
Just
to summarise, a dairy investment plan outlines the finances required --
cow house design, land required and feeding plans, etc. It also takes
care of all the logistics for future expansion.
For example, if you want to begin with three heifers, dairy
investment plans will show you how much you will incur to buy the cows
with regard to price variations, the conventional running costs you will
incur till you start milking and the cost of inputs you are using to
produce a litre of milk.
This means, you will be able
to tell if you are making profits plus the margins. This will clearly
pin point your weak areas requiring adjustments, since it is not strange
to find a dairy farm with large herd of cattle making less profit than
one with few herd of cattle with higher production.
A
good investment plan also frameworks future expansion aspects; you are
able to tell how long it will take you to grow your herd to some
specific number you target with all the cost implications assuming now
new cows are bought.
2. Feed
Helps you plant, conserve and preserve enough fodder for resilience and realise a noticeable lift in feeding to sustain your farm even over dry periods.
Helps you plant, conserve and preserve enough fodder for resilience and realise a noticeable lift in feeding to sustain your farm even over dry periods.
Feeding entails use of forages, fodder,
concentrates or preserved feed sources. Decent planning may require you
to make some silage in advance, stock enough bales of hay, plant grasses
like Boma Rhodes, Kikuyu grass and other protein rich sources before
you bring in your animals.
The choice of feeding
depends upon your decision and availability of feeding materials. This
implies that you may decide to go Total Mixed Rations or use
conventional fodder plus supplements; either way you are on the right
track.
A well planned feeding strategy will ensure you
have plenty of quality feeds for your incoming animals and cushion you
from feed related risks and threats that come by.
For
example, you can tell how much silage you need to take you for certain
period of time with your current dairy stock if you want to make silage.
Water is the cheapest feed, thus should not pose much threat to your dairy farming.
3. Cow house construction
Keeping your cows in top health conditions starts with cow comfort. Cows cannot explain all that make them comfortable and keep then in optimal production; it stems from having a good cow barn.
Keeping your cows in top health conditions starts with cow comfort. Cows cannot explain all that make them comfortable and keep then in optimal production; it stems from having a good cow barn.
Installing
sustainable cow barns require considerable investments and proper
designing to take care of cow comfort, offer sound health and hygiene,
production and future expansion.
Best designed cow
barns are made from what is readily available to achieve environmental
friendliness, simplicity and cost efficiency from construction materials
available, whether timber or metals.
The Kenya
Market-led Dairy Program has developed a modular cow barn design to give
farmers room for future expansion as you grow your stock gradually
provided site selection provide space to grow with minimal cost
implications.
These designs also take care of easily
accessible feed and water trough placements, fresh air flow, soft and
clean sleeping cubicles and coarse ground for sound animal footing.
It
also offers opportunities for use of renewable sources of energy such
as solar lighting and biogas production to help you save on costs on
conventional energy sources.
Other physical structures
that accompany cow house include hay barn, silage shed and stores.
Construction of error-free housing structures or units require that
dairy experts to work with building contractors.
4. Buy a cow
The trend in poultry production is that one-day-old chicks arrive after brooders and feeds are secured, this applies to dairy farming. With your cow barn and feeding programme set, now you can embark on identification and buying of dairy cows.
The trend in poultry production is that one-day-old chicks arrive after brooders and feeds are secured, this applies to dairy farming. With your cow barn and feeding programme set, now you can embark on identification and buying of dairy cows.
Source animals from reputed farms using records to have a glimpse of origins and performance of the animals you intend to buy.
5. Other things to consider
- Works with professionals: Experts empower you with dairy standard operational procedures to support you up to the last production goals. Identify and build trust to get the best out of them.
- Herd fertility and calf rearing: Future of any dairy enterprise heavily relies on these; using the right breeding techniques and managing your calves well are steps forward in achieving these.
- Labour efficiency:Good rapport and mutual working relationship with the farm assistants.
- Waste management:Manure from dairy animals is not environmental friendly if left to accumulate or when not properly disposed. Develop a system to allow for easy removal of manure from the barns. Other useful options include construction of a biogas.
All these coupled with
high level standards hygiene and best management practices will make
dairy cows work for you, not vice versa!
***
Felix Akatch Opinya, Animal Breeding and Genetics, Egerton University
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