How I keep my 100 cows on three eighth-acre plots

John Chege explains a point to his visitor, Zozo Felicien, in his dairy farm in Kiambu. Chege keeps dairy cows on three different, 50 by 100 plots. PHOTO | JAMES NGUNJIRI | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Chege, who has been farming for 15 years, started with a few animals and now keeps dozens of cows on three different 50 by 100 plots.
  • To maximise on milk production, the cows need to save on energy. If they use lots of energy moving around, then they will not produce a lot of milk. Still, cows that move around tend to pick diseases as opposed to those that are confined.
  • He milks the cows three times a day and delivers the milk at the society, which buys at Sh40.
  • Chege’s 20 lactating cows produce around 400 litres of milk a day, with the top one offering about 30 litres daily.

Dressed in a black shirt and a matching trouser, the middle-aged man was all ears as the farmer in Kiambu County took him through the dos and don’ts when feeding cows.
“Don’t think that if you overfeed cows, they will produce more milk. Instead, they will even produce less,” farmer John Chege, 35, told his guest Zozo Felicien, a Congolese.

“Excess feeding interferes with the animal’s digestion process, and thus the overall production. The animals should be given enough time to chew the cud,” added Chege, whose farm is in Githunguri, in the agricultural rich Kiambu County.

The Congolese, who is the national coordinator for Action Sociale Et D’organisation Paysanne, one of the biggest grassroots farmer organisations in Congo, had travelled to the farm for tips on dairy farming, especially on small pieces of land, and running a dairy cooperative society.

Chege, who has been farming for 15 years having started with a few animals, keeps dozens of cows on three different 50 by 100 plots.

And that is what marvelled Zozo, who got to learn about the farmer’s Riverbanks Farm through a Kenyan friend.

On the first farm, Chege has about 40 heifers aged from three to 18 months. His second farm also measuring 50 by 100ft hosts a similar number of cows, calves and heifers. The third farm hosts about 20 animals and his house.

HYGENE IS SUPREME
Apart from the farm where he has built his residential house, the other farms are divided into two portions with a walkway of roughly 7 feet in between.

Each sleeps in a space of about 5 by 8 feet with a general feeding and watering space on the opposite side. Once they are through with feeding, they simply turn around and get into their sleeping quarters.

On all the farms, there are other structures, some holding goats, sheep and chicken, as well as staff houses and feeds’ stores.

Having such a large number of animals in a small enclosure, one would expect Chege is assailed by foul-smelling animal waste. “Cleanliness is paramount. I have full-time employees who clean the cows and the sheds regularly. The waste is then channelled to the bio-digester for biogas production.”

Chege insisted that a cow only needs to eat the equivalent of two 10-litre basketfuls of feeds, that is about 20kg daily. He feeds the cows mostly on napier grass, which is sliced into pieces using a chaff cutter and mixed with wheat bran.

The cows are fed twice a day; in the morning and in the afternoon. Each feeding session lasts roughly two hours, after which the feeding area is closed to avoid over-eating.

“Anything more than that is over-feeding, which is not only costly but also reduces milk production. What cows require in plenty is water,”
And to ensure he has sufficient water supply, Chege has drilled boreholes on all his three farms.

GOOD FARMING MANAGEMENT PRACTICES

Zozo, who said that small farmers back home do not practice zero-grazing, was surprised that cows which are in an enclosure are capable of producing good amounts of milk.

Dairy cows in their sheds inside Chege's dairy cow farm in Githunguri, Kiambu County. PHOTO | JAMES NGUNJIRI | NATION MEDIA GROUP

“To maximise on milk production, the cows need to save on energy. If they use lots of energy moving around, then they will not produce a lot of milk. Still, cows that move around tend to pick diseases as opposed to those that are confined,” explained Chege.

Chege’s 20 lactating cows produce around 400 litres of milk a day, with the top one offering about 30 litres daily, making him one of the largest shareholders of the Githunguri Dairy Cooperative, where he is a member.

He milks the cows three times a day and delivers the milk at the society, which buys at Sh40.

“I am currently servicing a loan that I pay Sh350,000 per month. Once I complete repaying it, I will borrow more to expand my business,” he added.

An impressed Zozo said his organisation would extend an invite to Chege, sometime in August, so that he can teach and motivate farmers in Congo.

Felix Opinya, a livestock expert at Egerton University, says that such an intensive kind of farming poses risks when a disease strikes.

“Due to the close confinement, diseases can spread fast and if not properly managed can wipe out the entire stock,” he says, adding the system has no problem as long as a farmer engages in good management practices.