More of Songa Farm

The mechanical grass chopper needed repair therefore the 'armstrong machete chopper' is currently used to chop more than a ton of Napier grass every day to supplement the ninety milk cows in the barn at milking time.

This final picture in this post is taken at a '1 cow per poor family' visit. An impressive animal that was due to give birth in the next few weeks. Artificial insemination was used for 3 tries but unsuccessful and then the cow was bred naturally and conceived...an often normal result. Looking at the current condition of this animal and recognizing her current status, my guess is that she will be quite thin within the first three months after calving. If this was the case in her last lactation, her reproductive organs would not be in the condition needed to conceive artificially. The first AI service was at about 60 days in milk. After 3 tries, now at least 2 months later the cow would begin to put on more condition and would be in better shape to conceive and therefore the natural breeding would be most successful. Farmers often don't seem to understand that an animal may look good from the outside but still 'skinny' on the inside. An animal always looks after itself for maintenance before any nutrition is put towards production (milk or beef, etc) and/or reproduction.