The 71-year-old family-run farm

On the slopes of Salama Hills in Makueni County sits Yoani Farm, an expansive enterprise straddling 5,048 acres.
Standing on the Mombasa-Nairobi highway, it is hard to tell that such a marvel exists in the semi-arid region, thanks to the noise from the traders at the nearby market and the heavy trucks labouring to climb the hill.
The noise drowns that of cows mooing, calves bawling, bulls bellowing and herders whistling across the road at Yoani Farm.
The farm hosts hundreds of dairy and beef animals and is owned by Robin Stanley.
"Our main business is keeping livestock and using them to covert grass to human food focusing on maintaining a balance on the ecosystem,” Stanley, a ruminant nutritionist and farm management graduate from Massey University, New Zealand says, lifting the lid on what the ranch that has been in existence for 71 years does.
Yoani Farm is a family business whose management has been passed down from one generation to the next. Stanley is in the fourth generation and he is already preparing his son Aidan, 7, to take over when time comes – in 20 years.

Supplementary concentrate feeds
Stanley works alongside 200 workers, 80 of them permanently employed and the rest are hired on need basis.
“We keep Holstein Friesian animals for milk production that we sell to licensed distributors as well as produce beef from registered Boran stud cattle. Our dairy herd consists of 305 pure-bred Holstein Friesian and 325 Boran beef cattle.”
They sell the beef animals to markets in Kajiado, Machakos and Makueni, and high-end outlets in Nairobi, where some go for as high as Sh450,000 each.
The dairy cows are fed on concentrates at milking time. This is a parlour ration which contains dairy meal and the cows are offered according to their yield using a simple formula: Kg Feed = (Kg milk – 5)/2 .
“A cow producing 20 litres of milk eats (20-5)/2 = 7.5kg concentrates over and above the forage portion of the diet,” offers Stanley, 45.
He adds that dairy cows and calves are the only animals that receive any form of supplementary concentrate feeds.
“Once they are about a year old, the calves have to fend for themselves grazing on grass in the farm. All the animals are grazed out in the paddocks where they spread manure and the general fertility of the farm increases allowing the star grass (Cynodon dactylon) to spread and thrive.”

Silage making
The grass is also cut for the making of silage, or allowed to dry and baled into hay and stacked in a shed.
The cows offer an average of 17 litres a day but top producers give from 25 to 30 litres.
“Our daily yield is currently 2,200 litres a day from 180 cows. We pasteurise the milk and sell wholesale in markets across Machakos, Makueni and even Nairobi counties."
The farm further produces dairy cattle for sale to other farmers across the country.
Stanley prides himself as a stockist of high quality cattle for rejuvenating the national herd.
“We buy semen from Canada, US, and Holland to inseminate the dairy animals. We also use good homebred registered Boran bulls from the Boran stud herd occasionally. Homebred Boran bulls are used to cross the Friesians to get a hardy animal that is good for milk in the largely semi-arid environment,” offers Stanley, adding there is an insatiable demand for Boran and Friesian crossbreeds from farmers in semi-arid areas.

Hand milking
We drive into a dozen milkmen on the expansive farm working on a herd of cows in the fields, where the animals normally graze.
The ritual starts with the herdsmen driving the animals under a shade where the milkmen armed with buckets, milking jars, milking salve and teat disinfectants swing into action calling the cows by name.
“Once a cow is called, it walks past the others to the milking point where it gets itself busy snacking on dairy meal as the milkman gets down to business.”
The milking is done by hand out in the fields instead of machines, and Stanley has several reasons for this.
“This ensures that the cows easily get inspected for diseases such as mastitis. It is also the most convenient thing to do considering the roaming approach.”
He adds that milking the cows by hand creates employment for locals, and this enhances the relationship between the farm and the community.
“Although machine milking could be a cheaper option in the long-run, it important to maintain employment levels in our community. On the plus side, the cow gets a “once over” health check – twice a day.”
The extensive rotational grazing that the farm has adopted, he says, improves the soil structure and pasture because manure is spread on the grassland.
Challenges expected when running such a ranch include reduction in water and feeds, and insecurity.
“Sometimes we pile up to 12,000 bales which helps us cut on the overheads the dry spell.”
Stanley is preparing his son to take over after him.
“He has learnt to milk already, loves tractors, and likes to be part of the farm in his school holidays and he gets on very well with the farm workers,” Stanley says, adding the boy owns part of the herd.

Home of champion bulls
The farm produced the champion steer and champion pen of three steers during the Livestock Breeders Show held in Nairobi last week.
“It was an honour to receive the two trophies from President Uhuru Kenyatta. The awards were a crowning of our efforts to produce quality milk and beef,” Stanley tells Seeds of Gold amid the cows mooing when we tracked him last week.
But this was not the first time the ranch was winning at the show founded by Stanley’s parents, David Stanley (now deceased), and Mary Neville in 1999.
At the show, elite livestock breeders showcase their beef and dairy animals, including Borans, Ayrshire, Jersey, Holstein Friesians as well as sheep and goat breeds. They also exchange breeding tips and trade inputs and pedigree breeds.
Stanley’s pure Boran steers weathered credible opposition from Boran bulls crossed with other exotic breeds raised at Kifuku, Ole Pejeta Conservancy, Solio, Marania Farm and other big ranches in Laikipia County.
The competitors to Stanley’s animals were obviously heavier, but he says Judge Budler PJ also considered the body configuration of the competing bulls and their adaptability to the environment in which they are raised.
“In an international industry driven by technology and data, the Boran does it naturally. It has done it for 1,300 years. The cattle are uniform, adapted, good-natured, sound footed, great uddered and all this is done by selection in large contemporary groups for functional efficiency,” Budler says in a Facebook post, highlighting the reason why the Boran is loved.