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    Live­stock breed­ers’ bon­anza in­spires farmer into dairy­ing

    A de­cision to at­tend the Live­stock breed­ers show and sale in 2013 has been the spark that has trans­formed Gil­bert Henry Obonyo’s farm­ing for­tunes and changed his long held wrong per­cep­tions about dairy farm­ing.

    Today he owns a cow that gives him upto 10 litres a day and earn­ing him over Sh20,000 a month.
    The dairy farmer from Kisumu al­ways be­lieved that dairy an­im­als could not sur­vive in the hot weather and that dis­eases would eas­ily wipe away the an­im­als.

    But the men­tal­ity was re­versed when he joined more than 1,600 farm­ers from 22 counties who at­ten­ded the Brook­side Live­stock Breed­ers Show and sale. At the show, Obonyo learned that cer­tain breeds of cows could, in fact, be well ad­ap­ted for his par­tic­u­lar farm en­vir­on­ment.

    With his newly ac­quired know­ledge, Obonyo did the math and de­cided it made eco­nomic sense to pur­chase a dairy cow, given the high po­ten­tial milk yields. He sold one of his zebu bulls for Sh30,000 and took out part of his sav­ings to buy a dairy cow at Sh50,000.

    Cur­rently his cow gives him 5 liters of milk per day, some of which he sells to his neigh­bors at Sh50 per liter and the rest is con­sumed at home. He is con­fid­ent that with high-qual­ity feeds that are af­ford­able but of good qual­ity, milk pro­duc­tion will in­crease sig­ni­fic­antly fol­low­ing the next calv­ing. Obonyo has also planted Napier grass on half acre of his land, which will as­sist him beat the pro­hib­it­ive cost of feed and boost milk pro­duc­tion.

    Obonyo has con­struc­ted a zero graz­ing unit and feeds his cow on Napier grass and min­eral sup­ple­ments in ad­di­tion to en­sur­ing it is reg­u­larly vac­cin­ated. He is also in the pro­cess of buy­ing a feed cut­ter to save on time and labor.

    En­thu­si­astic farmer that he is, Obonyo He is mo­bil­iz­ing his neigh­bors to adopt dairy farm­ing and over­come the mis­con­cep­tion that areas of Kisumu are not fit for dairy farm­ing.

    Start­ing dairy farm­ing for Obonyo was a great de­cision that will keep him happy and provide him with money in his re­tire­ment. "I plan to sell off my other five zebu cows and use the money to buy more dairy cows," he said.

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