Abstract
Smallholder beef cattle farms in South Africa have had low reproductive performance, which has been associated with management practices. Considering current farm management practices, a multi-stage selection study was conducted to assess reproductive performance as defined by pregnancy rate, fetal and calf losses, calving interval and days open to benchmark reproductive performance. Data were collected twice, in autumn (March–May) for pregnancy diagnosis and in spring (September–November) for monitoring of confirmed pregnancies. Overall, 3694 cow records from 40 smallholder herds were collected during 2018 and 2019 breeding seasons from five provinces. The preferred 25th quartile described target performance and GLIMMIX procedure determined associations between management practices and performance. Smallholder farms on average recorded 50% pregnancy rate and 12% fetal and calf losses with 304 and 608 days open and calving interval, respectively. The derived target benchmarks for pregnancy rate, fetal and calf losses, days open and calving intervals in smallholder farms were 54%, 1.4%, 152 and 425 days, respectively. Reproductive performance was associated with no knowledge of body condition scoring before breeding, culling of old and non-productive cows, record keeping and low bull to cow ratio (p < 0.05). The performance benchmarks implied that industry averages may be improved if sustainable management services are provided through extension and advisory services.
Funder
Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research
Subject
General Veterinary,Animal Science and Zoology
Reference66 articles.
1. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World. Safeguarding against Economic Slowdowns and Downturns, 2019.
2. Understanding Breeding Preferences among Small-Scale Cattle Producers: Implications for Livestock Improvement Programmes;Mutenje;Animal,2020
3. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World. Building Resilience for Food and Food Security, 2017.
4. Dioula, B.M., Deret, H., Morel, J., and Kiaya, V. Enhancing the Role of Smallholder Farmers in Achieving Sustainable Food and Nutrition Security. Proceedings of the ICN2, Second International Conference on Nutrition, Volume 13.
5. Diversified Farming Systems: An Agroecological, Systems-Based Alternative to Modern Industrial Agriculture;Kremen;Ecol. Soc.,2012