Zero Grazing: A guide to increased dairy production

Author(s):
Dr. Kiconco Doris
Published:
2012
Availability :
In Stock
Reducing malnutrition among children and pregnant mothers is a challenge to many development workers. One of the approaches is to improve production and increase availability of milk. With the ever-in...
UGX 15,000

Reducing malnutrition among children and pregnant mothers is a challenge to many development workers. One of the approaches is to improve production and increase availability of milk. With the ever-increasing human population, however, land holding per household is on the decline and, therefore, conventional dairy production is becoming more difficult. This is particularly so in peri-urban settings, where families need milk not only for domestic consumption, but also income generation. This scarcity of farmland calls for highly intensive dairy farming system to increase efficiency of land utilization, thus the zero grazing system.

Zero Grazing is a system of dairy production whereby the dairy cows are kept in a stall all the time, and feed and water are brought to them. Animals are not taken to the pasture for grazing; pasture is cut from the field and brought to the stall for the animals to eat. This book sets out to describe, explain and market zero grazing as a means of solving the malnutrition problem through increasing animal productivity without the hustle of taking the animals out. It will work for the individual farmer, for agriculture scholars and those intending to take on dairy farming at subsistence and commercial levels.



About the Author


Dr Kiconco Doris is currently holding the post of Principal Veterinary Inspector, in Ministry of Agriculture Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF), responsible for inspection and certification of live animals and animal products for export and domestic trade. She was born to Mr Ezra (deceased) and Mrs Efuransi Batuta of Muyebe village, Buhara sub-county, Kabale district in 1961. She attended Muyebe Primary School, Bweranyangi Girls Secondary School and Nyakasura School. A holder of Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine degree from Makerere University and Master of Science in Tropical Animal Production and Health from Edinburgh University, Dr Kiconco has worked in Kampala and Mpigi districts as Veterinary Offi cer, providing extension and clinical services to livestock farmers, especially dairy farmers. In 1993 she transferred to Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF) headquarters where she was responsible for promoting and guiding small scale dairy farming for more than fifteen years. During this period she worked with the -œHeifer Project- that was initiated, funded and implemented by MAAIF in the original Mpigi district, enabling her to gain insight into the challenges of the zero grazing system of dairy production. In a bid to find an answer to the challenge of -œrepeat insemination- that was the most common and most economically devastating, she carried out research for partial fulfi lment of her Master's degree, on the -œReproductive Performance of Zero Grazed Dairy Cattle kept by Women in Mpigi District-. This study became the motivation for this book.

-->