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NEWS & CURRENT AFFAIRS

The Nairobian

My cows rarely fall sick and produce a lot of milk

Livestock

By Kamundia Muriithi | Oct 24, 2019

**Basilio Kinyua Ngaine at his dairy farm in Kamutubu, Tharaka Nithi County. [Kamundia Muriithi]**

Basilio Kinyua Ngaine has three reasons why his pedigree dairy cows rarely fall sick and if they do, he is able to manage the disease.

First, for a person who trained in pharmacy and had operated a chemist for over a decade dispensing drugs to human beings, Ngaine has pharmacological knowledge that also helps in treating animals.

The farmer’s medical background enables him to diagnose a sick cow and administer treatment in most cases unless it is a complicated case that requires a vet.

Secondly, he provides a balanced diet that has total mixed ratio to his 10 cows and several calves. He sticks to the vaccination and deworming schedule and maintains a clean shed, factors that help keep his animals free from disease.

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The last factor is his experience spanning over 10 years as a dairy farmer. During that period, Ngaine has encountered setbacks such as losing a high breeder to mastitis but he is now wiser.

For his effort, the 41-year-old farmer has built a fortune for himself in dairy farming, which he estimates earns him about Sh150,000 every month.

While other farmers across the country have been crying of poor prices of milk offered by processors at around Sh30 per litre, Ngaine has a milk shop in Chuka town where he sells all his milk at Sh60 per litre, He started the shop after being frustrated by dairies which offered Sh36 per litre, and the payment would be late.

When we visited him at his farm in Kamutubu area of Mugwe ward, Tharaka-Nithi County, Ngaine was preparing for the afternoon milking.

His contented and healthy cows chewed curd luxuriously turning softly to look at us the intruders.

When Ngaine starts speaking, what strikes a visitor is that we are dealing with an educated and confident man with a sound knowledge of matters dairy farming.

The pharmacy graduate of Nairobi Technical Training Institute tells us that he was fulltime running his own chemist when he resolved to start dairy farming.

He sourced five cows from a farm in Githunguri and off he started.

As his farm business picked up, Ngaine recalls how hard it became for him to juggle between the chemist which required to remain open the entire day and the demanding cows.

“Ultimately the chemist gave way to the cows. The cows were more lucrative and promised a better future for me,” says the farmer who has bought parcels of land, a vehicle and made several other investments from the proceeds of dairy farming.

Once he was fulltime into dairy farming, Ngaine bought five more dairy cows to increase his herd and production.

It is during that time that he had the misfortune of a cow contracting mastitis and he had to sell it as throwaway price of Sh8,000.

“Before it contracted the disease, I could have sold it around Sh150,000. It was such a loss that I decided to be milking the cows by myself. Mastitis is caused by failure to remove all the milk in a cow’s udder,” he says.

The farmer rears the Friesian breed, which is a veritable high producer of milk when kept under good conditions.

Even though its butter content is lower compared to other breeds such as Guernsey, Ngaine is able to achieve better milk quality through providing high quality silage rich in energy and protein.

Currently, most of his cows are at in-calf stage and expected to calve any time soon. He is only milking three cows which produce about 60 litres, but projects that in the next two weeks he could be milking six cows and getting about 180 litres daily.

The farmer who wakes up 4am every morning to milk the cows so that it has to be at his milk shop at 5.30am. he does the afternoon milking at 3pm and in between those two milking session assisted by a farm hand ensures the cows receive adequate feed and sheds are clean.

He buys maize and stovers from farms in the county and uses them to make silage that can last up to a year.

“I mix silage with green fodder and diary meal so as to provide the required nutritional needs for the cows. When well fed, cows yield more milk, are disease resistant and get on heat as they should,” he says.

With his fam occupying just an eighth of an acre, Ngaine points out that for success in dairy farming, proper planning surpasses having a huge track of land.

Though farmers in the county have complained about the government not assisting them in anyway as they grapple with poor market and high cost of feeds, Ngaine lauds a recent move by the county government to offer subsidized Artificial Insemination services.

Ngaine also used to be a thriving coffee but has since ditched it citing poor returns for dairy farming.

“My record at Kathiguni coffee factory is still unbroken. Four years ago I produced 8,300kgs and we were paid Sh70 per kilo. The price has been on a gradual decline until it reached a time when I didn’t see a future in it. I cut it and replaced it with Napier grass. I’m happy I did that,” he says.