• About
  • Our Work
  • Join
  • Partner
  • Media
EMAIL SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
SUBSCRIBE TO NEWSLETTER

Sign-up for monthly updates on Winrock's work around the world.

Volunteer Blog

VOLUNTEER BLOG

An Animal Breeder’s Dream

  • SHARE:
  • Copy

Posted on July 12, 2018 by Terry Gibson

Recently,  I conducted a Farmer-to-Farmer assignment on Improved Goat Rearing for Youth Entrepreneurship Development with Satkhira Unnayan Sangstha (SUS) in the Tala upazila, Satkhira district of Bangladesh (22.76006 N, 89.25346 E). This assignment was my first trip to Bangladesh.  I was pleasantly surprised to see how well positioned the Bangladeshi goat industry is.  In my travels to other countries where goats are also a ubiquitous feature of the landscape, I was not optimistic about making any real genetic progress because goats freely roamed the countryside, scavenged what they could, and bred indiscriminately.  Often, goats are seen as a resource but one that does not deem any investment.  With little management and no breeding supervision, the prospects of genetic improvement were nil. However, Bangladesh is very, very different.

The goat farming women of SUS after a successful 3 day training

Current Situation

During my Farmer-to-Farmer assignment, I learned that none of the 20 women goat farmers in the one-day refresher course and none of the 30 women goat farmers on the three-day training owned a single buck and that any male kids were castrated young.  All of these women goat farmers (76% of the trainees) rely upon buck centers for insemination services.  The women monitor signs of estrus in their does and take them to the buck centers for mating.  This trip to the buck center can be as much as 8 kilometers roundtrip and cost the women up to a full day away from home.

The buck center that I visited had nine standing bucks; one Jamnapari buck, two Hariana bucks, one Nepalese buck, four Black Bengal bucks, and one buck that they did not know the breed/origin, so they called him the “Australian.”  The service fee ranged from 100 taka ($1 ≈ 80 taka) for the Black Bengal bucks to 400 taka for the Australian.

The owner of the buck center was a former rickshaw driver and with the assistance of a loan from SUS and with the help of his wife started the buck center in 2013.

Training

The training was simple and focused on housing, nutrition, health, reproduction, record keeping, and general management.  Probably the most practical aspects of the sessions were evaluating eye mucous membranes for anemia, conducting body condition score (BCS), and estimating body weight.  Anemia was evaluated using the color under the farmer’s pressed thumbnail. The mucous membranes of the goat’s eye should be the color of the pressed thumbnail. The women farmers practiced BCS using the goat’s lower back and ribs and were taught to make management decisions based upon BCS. Body weight can be easily calculated using a tailor’s tape and the formula, kg = cm/2 – 14. Goats require feeding and medications based on body weight.

Demonstrating how to evaluate anemia using the eye mucous membrane color

 

Women conducting a body condition scoring exercise

 

The Dream

Women goat farmers invest much time, effort, and money into the current breeding system and when I realized the importance of the buck centers in the community, I immediately knew that I would love to help these buck centers with the delivery of their product to the women farmers.  The technology of artificial insemination using fresh semen is simple and developing a delivery system of fresh semen to the women goat farmers is even simpler. My dream is that bucks at the buck centers would be collected on twice- or thrice-weekly schedule, fresh semen extended with a skim milk diluent, and chilled to 4°C.  Women goat farmers would call the buck center and arrange an appointment for insemination by cell phone, which all the women farmers have. The buck center would employ a trained inseminator on a bicycle with a cool box to travel to the woman’s farmer for vaginal insemination of the goat. This system would greatly benefit the woman farmer by relieving her of the task and expense of commuting to the buck center and would benefit the buck center by expanding its reach in the community. Women goat farmers in the communities surrounding the buck centers could be given a refresher course in estrus detection, although none is probably needed. The women are already well versed in the signs of estrus. This simplified artificial insemination system delivered to the women farmers would greatly improve the efficiency of the current system and relieve the stress at breeding. An additional side note would be that training on the understanding of inbreeding and its negative consequences is also needed. Genetic improvement can easily be accomplished through the buck centers, but the buck centers and the women farmers should keep breeding records to avoid inbreeding.

A cold box with fresh, cooled semen and a simplified inseminating tool is the dream for any breeder

I was very impressed with the business-like attitude of the women goat farmers in Bangladesh, and I would gladly return to help them and the buck centers become more efficient.  I wish them both the best in their goat rearing endeavors.

Posted in Asia, Bangladesh | Tagged Bangladesh, Farmer-to-Farmer, Goats, international travel, international volunteer, knowledge transfer, people-to-people exchange, women, youth
ABOUT FARMER-TO-FARMER WINROCK VOLUNTEER ASSISTANCE

SUBSCRIBE TO POSTS

Loading

ARCHIVE

  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • December 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • April 2021
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • November 2019
  • September 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011

CATEGORIES

  • AET
  • Africa
    • Ghana
    • Senegal
  • Asia
  • Bangladesh
  • Cuba
  • El Salvador
  • Ethiopia
  • Field Staff
  • Guinea
  • Kenya
  • Latin America
  • Mali
  • Myanmar
  • Nepal
  • Nigeria
  • Postharvest
  • Rural Livelihoods
  • Senegal
  • Spotlights
  • Volunteer Feedback
  • Volunteer of the Month
  • Winrock Staff
WinrockIntl
Tweets by @WinrockIntl
Follow @WinrockIntl

204 E 4th Street | North Little Rock, Arkansas 72114

ph +1 501 280 3000 | fx +1 501 280 3090

2451 Crystal Drive, Suite 700 | Arlington, Virginia 22202

ph +1 703 302 6500 | fx +1 703 302 6512

  • Contact
  • E-News Signup
  • Low Bandwidth
  • Code of Conduct
  • Winrock Privacy Statement
  • Site Map
  • Terms of Use
Copyright © 2015- Winrock International
DEV ENVIRONMENT