This month, our technical section is packed with a variety of interesting topics, such as milk fever in goats, choosing the right cattle for your farm and teat disinfection to ensure quality control. Staying with quality control, we have a mastitis checklist for you to ensure your cows remain free of this disease. Also in the technical section, we tell you more about jaagsiekte found among sheep, what to look out for and how to stop the disease from spreading. Lastly, we show you how to build a bunker silo.

In our Enrichment section, we take a look at a very familiar phenomenon in the farming community, namely co-operatives. We discuss what exactly this is, what it comprises of and what benefits it has for the farming community.

We hope that you will enjoy this edition as much as we did compiling it for you.
Until next time.

It is in this paradise that Nkuliseni Leonard Mavhungu prefers to stay and watch the grass grow. “In my view, cows turn grass into milk. The richer and more abundant the grass, the richer and more abundant the milk is going to be. And this is what I like most,” he said.

“A healthy cow always gives you the best milk. Feeding them and making sure they are healthy, is the only medicine for a successful dairy production business,” he said.

It starts with the pastures
“We use a combination of high-quality pasture, supplemental, stored and purchased feedstuffs. Optimising dry matter intake and maintaining normal rumen function is a priority we also monitor closely,” he said.

“Pastures,” he explained, “are the foundation of sustainable dairy production. We best maintain ours here by developing a grazing system or plan that conserves the soil and plant resources, while maximising productivity within the natural limits of the particular ecology of the farm.”

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