Vet on Call: How to ensure you get right price for your cow

My article on white cattle and cancer of the eyes and vulva last Saturday must not be seen as a death sentence on white cows.

I meant to create awareness among cattle farmers that white cows lacking pigmentation in the eyes and the vulva areas are likely to develop cancer in those areas if exposed continuously to direct sunlight.

The article raised a lot of interest in farmers and three of them enquired if they should sell all their white cows for slaughter despite being high milk yielders.

It is worth noting that not all white cows lack pigment or colour around the eyes and the vulva. Some cows will be white but with dark pigmentation.

For those farmers with cows lacking pigmentation, the best thing is to protect the animals from direct sunlight and also breed them with semen from bulls with good pigmentation.

You may only sell off the animals if stricken by cancer that cannot be surgically removed by a veterinary doctor.

Let us now revisit the case of Nyamweru, the cow that I recommended to be sold for slaughter due to vulva cancer.

Jane, Patrick’s farm manager, successfully sold the cow for slaughter to a local butcher but with a lot of drama.

The cow was in good body condition and the butchers could not resist the high quality meat envisaged from the animal’s well-rounded body.

They also knew the meat was likely to be soft and very appealing to their customers since Nyamweru was zero-grazed all her life and she was a fairly young cow at about 5 years.

You see, butchers are real good businessmen who will make all attempts to get the lowest price for the best animal. In my experience, they use all manner of excuses to downgrade the carcass quality and justify very low price offers.

I mentally laughed one time when I heard a butcher tell a farmer, “You know mama, you have milked this cow for the whole year. That milking causes muscle loss in the animal which will only be evident once we hang the carcass on the scale.”

Another butcher also told a farmer in my presence that dairy cows look very good and large but they are very light.

VERY LOW WEIGHT

“They are just like cotton with a lot of volume and very little weight,” he had stated for effect.

All these claims by butchers have no basis. Farmers can counter the arguments by using scientifically proven methods to fairly accurately determine the weight of their animals before offering them for sale.

In Nyamweru’s case, the first interested buyer made an offer of Sh30,000 claiming the animal had very low weight because, according to him, it is a characteristic of zero-grazed dairy cattle.

A second butcher offered Sh40,000 shillings saying the cow was already sick and he could not know how widespread the cancer was. Jane quickly countered that by referring him to me for an expert explanation.

I confirmed to him the cancer was only in the affected tissue since it was in the early stages. In addition, I told him Patrick’s farm carried out fair business and if on slaughter the carcass was condemned, the farm would refund all his money.

I had assisted Jane to estimate the live weight of the animal at 447 kg and expected meat yield of 246kg. With those figures, the cow would sell for approximately Sh61,000 and still be profitable to the butcher.

This calculation had taken into account that the butcher would also sell the skin, the internal organs, the head and hooves and add a mark-up on the meat.

Scientifically, it is estimated that a cow once slaughtered produces meat on bone, called the dressed carcass weight, of 50 to 55 per cent of the live weight.

To allow for negotiation, Jane put an asking price of Sh65,000 on Nyamweru.

The butchers did their negotiation dance of phone calls and visits to view the animal for about four days. Eventually Jane settled for Sh55,000 because it was the closest she could get to the target price of Sh61,000. “Well, in business, you lose some you win some,” she told me as she confirmed she had settled on the sale price.

So, how can farmers fairly accurately estimate the weight of animals for sale and negotiate good prices for their animals when selling for slaughter?

The answer lies in good estimation of the live weight of the animal. There is nothing like animals indicating a big volume and low weight; simply because a big volume requires strong muscles to support it. The strong muscles mean big weight.

DRESSED CARCASS WEIGHT

The most accurate way of determining the weight of an animal is the weighing scale from which the weight is just read off.

However, the equipment is expensive and suited for farms with large numbers of animals. Further, the scales are cumbersome to use because for cattle, they are fixed in one place and the animals have to be driven to the scale.

On the other hand, visual estimation is the most inaccurate weight estimation method. Research shows that even experienced farmers and livestock traders will underestimate the animals’ weight 80 per cent of the times.

This is the method preferred by butchers, obviously to their advantage. Unfortunately, many farmers will either trust butchers for their experience or believe them anyway because they need to sell the cow before it deteriorates and they lose everything.

In Nyamweru’s case, I used a weighing tape to estimate the weight. The tape has a fairly good accuracy in estimating the weight of cattle to within 10 per cent of the animal’s real live weight.

Although there are other techniques of weight estimation, I recommend the use of the weighing tape in cases where farmers do not have access to a weighing scale.

The marginal error in weight that may occur when using the tape is compensated for by the value of the skin and edible non meat components of the carcass since they are not factored in estimating the dressed carcass weight.

These are called “offals” and include the edible internal organs, head and hooves.

To estimate the weight using the weighing tape, the farmer should wrap the tape around the animal’s chest from the top of the shoulders, called withers, and pass it just behind the elbows.

Make sure that the cow is calm and stands with the head facing straight to the front because the chest expands when the head is down. The tape should also lie flat in full contact with the skin.

DIFFERENT TAPES FOR DIFFERENT ANIMALS

The farmer should then read off the weight in kilograms from the tape. The reading in centimetres or inches is called the “heart girth”.

Where the farmer has a weight chart, they can read off the weight from the chart by comparing the reading in centimetres to the weight on the chart.

Farmers should get tapes that are calibrated in both centimetres and weight in kilograms so that they can easily read the weight off the tape.

While using the tape, it is important to ensure that one has the tape for the correct animals since there are different tapes for the various species such as cattle, pigs, sheep and goats. Some tapes are even specific for cattle breeds and ages.

Weighing tapes are available in agrovet shops. A farmer should practice the use of the tape before using it and seek assistance from their veterinary service providers in case of any difficulties.

To improve the accuracy of weight estimation using the tape, the farmer should always request the butcher to provide them with the actual carcass yields of animals weighed using the tape.

Farmers should also acquaint themselves with the meat prices on the market so that they can be able to calculate the monetary value of their live animals in order to fix the price.

Veterinary service providers are in a better position to advice the farmers on the meat prices in their area of operation. Farmers should consult them before setting the prices on animals being sold for slaughter.