EARTAGS: WHY USE THEM? Animal identification has been around for a really long time. If you have a pet, you have likely purchased a collar and tag for your new puppy or kitty (unless of course it’s a pet snake or tortoise). Similarly, we use ear tags to identify our cattle immediately. Ear tags are flat, mostly plastic or metallic objects of various colors that are connected to the ears of cattle, sheep, goats or …
Date: June 22, 2016Author: Farmers Trend0 Comments Introduction Dry cow therapy (DCT) is the treatment of cows at the end of lactation with a long acting antibiotic preparation with or without a teat sealant. This is to treat for any intra-mammary infections (IMI) contracted during lactation and provides protection against new infections during the dry period. Dry cow therapy is a component of the five point plan. Infection dynamics During a cows lactation, the probability of infection increases from …
Date: July 5, 2016Author: Farmers Trend0 Comments In Kenya, less than 2 per cent of animals are registered making it hard to make good breeding decisions. Many farmers are spending a fortune importing semen from Europe and other countries, do we have quality semen here? Semen from Europe is produced by bulls that have been subjected to a lot of genetic evaluation. They are selected based on a large number of ‘daughters’ they have produced with detailed information …
Date: October 6, 2016Author: pillainc0 Comments Which breed of dairy cow can produce the largest volumes of milk? And which breed will give you the highest amount of milk per kg bodyweight? And the best quality of milk as measured by butterfat and protein percent? These are questions that are easy to answer and few will deny that Holsteins and Jerseys will win above challenges. Much more difficult to answer is the question about the most profitable dairy …
