PASTURE MANAGEMENT

Why  grow pastures?

1. Livestock feed contributes over 60 percent of the total cost of production in a profitable livestock enterprise.
2. Pasture is a crop (grass, legume or fodder tree and shrub, both native and introduced) grown for feeding animals. Pastures provide a major source of feed (nutrients) for goats
3. Pastures provide a soil cover, conserve soil moisture, improve soil fertility through nitrogen fixation, supress weeds, improve crop yield and household income
4. Pastures can be grown as fodder for sale to livestock farmers without land:

• Fresh fodder e.g elephant grass, signal grass and others,
• Conserved pastures (hay, silage, haylage),
• Crop residues (bean husks, sweet potato vines, straw and maize stover),

5. Some pastures are used in the control of pests and diseases.

• Greenleaf Desmodium planted between maize rows, repel (“push”) the stem borer. Napier grass planted around maize crop attract and trap maize stem borer (“pull”). Desmodium provides a soil cover, controls striga weeds and is nitrogen fixing, which improves soil fertility and maize grain and fodder yield.

“Push and Pull” maize stem borer control strategy

 

6.Pasture seed production is an opportunity for investments by youth. This can help youth to create employment, be more self-reliant, mitigate the impact of natural disasters on animal production, increase production and ensure more sustainable livestock feed systems and food security.

7. Pasture seed production is a cash crop (seeds, seedlings and cuttings) similar to coffee, beans and maize. Establishing a new pasture or renovating an existing pasture requires good quality pasture seed. The pasture seed crop must be established and managed using recommended agronomic practices to maximize yields.

Pasture seed crop must be established using recommended agronomic practices such as “row planting” which makes weeding easier than when seed is broadcasted

1.Parasites and pasture

One of the best outcomes of parasite control program is the reduction of number of parasites that the goats are exposed to. This can be accomplished by managing pastures in a way that will reduce parasitic load. There are several ways to do this:

• Use control grazing practices to optimize pasture production. This is a better practice than continuous grazing on the same pasture because goats will return to the same area where their favourite plants are growing. Those areas will then become heavily infected by gastrointestinal parasite larvae.
• Always put goats with the highest nutritional requirements on the best quality pastures. Good nutrition allows a more effective immune response to fight gastrointestinal parasites
• Take a hay crop. This type of pasture can be incorporated into a dose-and-move program in which goats are grazed on one pasture in the early grazing season and then moved to another goat pasture which was used for first cutting of hay. another move before the end of the grazing season will probably provide the best parasite control

When it comes to farming business, KIMD CONSTRUCTION AND FARM CONSULTANTS LTD is much willing to teach you as well as serving you. Do you want to start pasture growing as a business, searching for animal feeds or any pasture difficulty? Kimd is the only answer

• At kimd construction and farm consultants ltd, we have all kinds of pasture seeds for making hay and silage at a negotiable cost
• The company guides on pasture management and free training of workers
• We have hay and silage in stock at friendly costs and supplies wherever you are
• We hire harvesting equipments to our clients and market for products after harvesting.
• The company also deal in services like construction, veterinary services, livestock sales. Business plans and proposals among others. Therefore for details, find us on all social media platforms (kimd construction and farm consultants ltd), our website page at org or all directly on 0789058152

 

2.Control grazing and strip grazing.

The basic principle of control grazing is to allow goats to graze for a limited time, leaving a leafy stable, and then to move them to another pasture , paddock or sub-paddock. Smaller paddocks are  more uniformly grazed and surplus  paddock  can be harvested for hay.

Under control grazing, the legumes and native grasses may reappear in the pasture, and it is said that the pasture community becomes more diverse. Control grazing can be used to improve the pasture, extend the grazing season and enable the producer to provide a higher quality forage at a lower cost with fewer purchased input

Strip grazing can be easily superimposed on control grazing in large paddocks by placing movable electric fences ahead and behind goats, giving them sufficient forage for two to three days. It is very effective and results into high pasture utilization because goats will not graze soiled forage well

3.Burning

This should be done once in a year especially when the forage crops are over-mature and fibrous. This is to encourage regrowth of grasses and legumes

4. Fencing

This is the partitioning of the pastures into sections called paddocks to facilitate rotational grazing

5. Application of fertilizers

Application of fertilizers in pastures ensures rapid and succulent growth of pastures because of increase in the fertility of the soil.

.6. Weed control

Weeds should be removed regularly from pastures to prevent competition with forage plants for nutrients and space

7. Irrigation

Pastures farm should be irrigated especially during the dry season to ensure the availability of fresh and succulent grasses all the year round

8. Adequate stocking

The correct number of animals should be place on a pasture to graze. Over grazing should be prevented.

 

Contact us today and have a life time profitable investment. Thank you!