Day 23: Chicken & Dairy Work

Hello everyone!

This morning was an early one but it was nice to have first pick at the breakfast! But as always, toast with strawberry jam and strawberries. Mikhel came to pick up Hannah and I at 7:30 to go to Debre Zeit. When we got to the research farm we had to wait for a few minutes until one of the main researchers was able to get us our lab coats. Once we got into the building and Hannah directed some people as to what she had to do, she got to work. The workers weighed the chicks while Hannah collected that data as well as the feed consumption.

Now, it was my turn for my project. The two farms I wanted to visit were high producing farms. I really wasn't sure what to expect but both were very commercialized. First we me met Muhammed, the enumerator. Then we went to Genesis Farm where they specialized in horticulture, chickens, and dairy cattle. But, they also had rabbits and even a monkey. We walked through the vegetables and plants that were growing, by the chicken building, and past the rabbit cages. We went to the barn where the dairy were housed. We had to disinfect our boots in a water solution before we could go in. All but two of the cattle were 90% or more of the Holstein blood. After getting to know a bit about the management practices and care of the cattle I asked what was something they wanted to improve. The barn manager said the they wanted to cross the holstein cows with a local breed (such as Boran) to improve the maintenance needs. Being that Holstein cattle are not a indigenous breed they require more management compared to local breeds. The two that were not completely Holstein were 50% Boran and 50% Holstein. The major difference was that these cows did not need as much feed at the Holstein cattle. We finished up there and went on our way to another farm. Alfa Fodder.

 

(Genesis Farms has their own market)

(The monkey, rabbits, chickens, and plants)

(They use automatic waterers, update each cows 'sign' daily, exercise the cows daily, and the all-black cows are the 50% Boran 50% Holstein crosses)

Unfortunately at this farm they did not allow us to actually go to the barns where the cattle were housed for biosecurity reasons. They had an outbreak of foot and mouth disease and lost a lot of cattle last year in May. They did not have a shoe bath with disinfectant either. But it was okay because I was able to get the gist of my information from the General Manager (& owner I believe). He was from Holland and the cows were 100% Holstein from Holland. Why he came to Africa? I have no idea, he told me he could only give me 10 minutes of his time. So I asked as many questions as I could think of so that I could compare to Genesis Farm and others.

(I didn't get any pictures at Alfa Fodder because we didn't actually see the cows)

I was originally told that I wouldn't have time for questions for the thought that data being collected by the enumerator would take up time. But, today the enumerator did not take any data while were there. He simply went to the farms with us and somewhat translated the questions I asked (although he did not know english very well).

Hannah and I got back a little after lunch time. Sadly the Zebu wasn't serving food yet and the cafeteria was already closed. We decided to go to Kaldi's Coffee just around the corner from ILRI. I had the best BBQ and Ranch burger. Probably the best thing I've eaten since I've been here!

For the afternoon, we went to Dr. Jean Hanson to see what we could help with. Because it was already getting late in the afternoon she didn't want us to start in the cold room quite yet. So I helped her try to track down a paper she was look for that she needed reference. But, tomorrow we planned to go right away to start helping in the cold room of the gene bank. I'm actually pretty excited to start helping with that!