Wed., Aug 19
Up at 5, and left Entebbe at 5:30 for Masaka, with Silas, my young Ugandan friend, to visit Joy Children’s Centre, the source for most of the FAOC dairy goats. Our route went in to the outskirts of Kampala before cutting off west to Masaka, and my idea was to miss the morning rush hour traffic. I drove, with Silas along for backup and advice; he also is interested in goats so was keen to visit the farm.
I’d failed to consider that by 6:15 we were into the area of heaviest traffic, with many walkers and bicyclists along the road, light rain – and still fully dark. Here at the equator, it gets light –and dark - at 7. But we successfully negotiated our way through the suburbs, and as the light rose were heading out into the country on the same route we took to Mbarara. We reached the town at 8:30, made an unplanned scenic foray into the countryside when we bypassed the farm, but reached the site on time at 9.
Joy is church-sponsored, and was never an orphanage as such, but provided “orphan support”. David Dowdy and wife Jacquie have been in Uganda (from England) 16 yr.; he is a chemist by profession and she has a degree in psychology, but also worked as a nurse and midwife. David had just returned from a week in the far west of the country, and was most congenial – we talked at length out among the animal pens surrounded by the activity of the workers. Besides goats, at Joy they also milk a number of Friesian cows, all descended from one original cow, and keep a couple of donkeys.
Of late the name has been changed to Joy Youth Training Centre and Goat Breeding Farm, and the scheme has been to take on young people, usually youths who have left secondary school; employ them for a year and pay a salary as well as training them. 15% of the salary is given directly as pocket money, and 85% is banked so that when they leave they have a sum saved that they can use to go into ag diploma school or on to university.
The Dowdys have worked out a detailed goat management scheme, and they have a classroom with virtually a complete goat-keeping course in poster form on the walls. I took pictures of a number of the lists, such as high-protein leaves, poisonous leaves, leaves that can be fed in limited amounts, leaves not eaten by the goats, and so on. A number of individual raised pole houses give onto small communal pens so that the goats can be turned out for cleaning of the houses. Floors are often spaced planks, as they have experienced too many problems with pole floors – either they are too tight, so that they collect dung, or if spaced more widely, the goats get their legs caught and are susceptible to fractures. Because of the intensive labour required to house goats this way, they are moving away from individual housing to raised but group housing for milking does, and dry lot pens for kids, with a roofed shelter at one end. For bucks they prefer individual earth-floored pens with raised concrete or earth (built on a hillside) sleeping platforms, to allow for more exercise and secure footing. All the pens have feeding troughs outside, accessed by the goats through gaps in the walls, and also provide for water supply outside but away from the fodder, ideally.
Forage is purchased in bundles from the villagers, brought in by bicycle, weighed, chopped and mixed before feeding. Goats are milked directly in their houses; they have invested a lot of effort in getting the workers to milk the goats properly and not by “stripping”, as they traditionally (and still) do with the cows. The milk is sold by bicycle vendors who deliver directly to the customers, and David has concentrated on promoting infant feeding, often of older infants whose mothers want to return to work after 6 months, or those of HIV+ mothers once adding solid food to the diet. Local doctors recommend goats’ milk as more digestible for babies. Dowdy feels that it took about 5 years before local people found the idea of someone drinking goats’ milk no longer laughable, and about 10 before the local population began seeking it out for their own use.
The milk is delivered bulk directly to customers in “carefully sterilized” jerry cans (not ideal, I think, as one can’t get inside those plastic containers to clean them well, but apparently it has worked OK for them.) David points out that they are in a peri-urban environment, also that the price of milk in Masaka is double that in Mbarara (because of the abundant supply of cows’ milk in Mbarara); but still admits that the enterprise has not so far generated enough income to be profitable.
Dairy-type kids are removed from the does at birth and bottle fed, although they recommend to the villagers that they pan feed, because of the difficulty of cleaning bottles. They get 2-4 liters peak per doe at about 1 mo. fresh, most often about 3l.
They were at one time housing up to 300 goats, and had Anglo-Nubian and Alpine as well as Saanen and Togg, Boer and some local. The dairy-type kids born are now generally at least 87% dairy, and they are selecting for Toggenburg markings. He was most interested to hear about the Togg semen we imported for Makerere University, and hopes some of it can be used on Joy goats.
Big changes are being made: the Dowdys are turning over the enterprise to a young couple from the UK, Jon and Alison Laws, and moving on to breeding 50% dairy goats (as an established breed, he hopes), for distribution to villagers. He mentioned a number of areas he plans to work in, still based probably in Masaka, but wants to begin in the far west (Bujubujo?), where he had just spent the week, as the tribe there has some tradition of milking their local goats. The Joy herd will be reduced to about 45 milkers (from 100) with a total herd size of 100 animals.
At 1 o’clock we joined the group for their mid-day meal of sweet potato, pochu (cornmeal porridge), matoke, cabbage, beans and goat meat, shared informally in the kitchen area. Then we made our way back to Entebbe, with me yielding the driving finally to Silas as we negotiated the evening traffic near Kampala.
Up at 5, and left Entebbe at 5:30 for Masaka, with Silas, my young Ugandan friend, to visit Joy Children’s Centre, the source for most of the FAOC dairy goats. Our route went in to the outskirts of Kampala before cutting off west to Masaka, and my idea was to miss the morning rush hour traffic. I drove, with Silas along for backup and advice; he also is interested in goats so was keen to visit the farm.
I’d failed to consider that by 6:15 we were into the area of heaviest traffic, with many walkers and bicyclists along the road, light rain – and still fully dark. Here at the equator, it gets light –and dark - at 7. But we successfully negotiated our way through the suburbs, and as the light rose were heading out into the country on the same route we took to Mbarara. We reached the town at 8:30, made an unplanned scenic foray into the countryside when we bypassed the farm, but reached the site on time at 9.
Joy is church-sponsored, and was never an orphanage as such, but provided “orphan support”. David Dowdy and wife Jacquie have been in Uganda (from England) 16 yr.; he is a chemist by profession and she has a degree in psychology, but also worked as a nurse and midwife. David had just returned from a week in the far west of the country, and was most congenial – we talked at length out among the animal pens surrounded by the activity of the workers. Besides goats, at Joy they also milk a number of Friesian cows, all descended from one original cow, and keep a couple of donkeys.
Of late the name has been changed to Joy Youth Training Centre and Goat Breeding Farm, and the scheme has been to take on young people, usually youths who have left secondary school; employ them for a year and pay a salary as well as training them. 15% of the salary is given directly as pocket money, and 85% is banked so that when they leave they have a sum saved that they can use to go into ag diploma school or on to university.
The Dowdys have worked out a detailed goat management scheme, and they have a classroom with virtually a complete goat-keeping course in poster form on the walls. I took pictures of a number of the lists, such as high-protein leaves, poisonous leaves, leaves that can be fed in limited amounts, leaves not eaten by the goats, and so on. A number of individual raised pole houses give onto small communal pens so that the goats can be turned out for cleaning of the houses. Floors are often spaced planks, as they have experienced too many problems with pole floors – either they are too tight, so that they collect dung, or if spaced more widely, the goats get their legs caught and are susceptible to fractures. Because of the intensive labour required to house goats this way, they are moving away from individual housing to raised but group housing for milking does, and dry lot pens for kids, with a roofed shelter at one end. For bucks they prefer individual earth-floored pens with raised concrete or earth (built on a hillside) sleeping platforms, to allow for more exercise and secure footing. All the pens have feeding troughs outside, accessed by the goats through gaps in the walls, and also provide for water supply outside but away from the fodder, ideally.
Forage is purchased in bundles from the villagers, brought in by bicycle, weighed, chopped and mixed before feeding. Goats are milked directly in their houses; they have invested a lot of effort in getting the workers to milk the goats properly and not by “stripping”, as they traditionally (and still) do with the cows. The milk is sold by bicycle vendors who deliver directly to the customers, and David has concentrated on promoting infant feeding, often of older infants whose mothers want to return to work after 6 months, or those of HIV+ mothers once adding solid food to the diet. Local doctors recommend goats’ milk as more digestible for babies. Dowdy feels that it took about 5 years before local people found the idea of someone drinking goats’ milk no longer laughable, and about 10 before the local population began seeking it out for their own use.
The milk is delivered bulk directly to customers in “carefully sterilized” jerry cans (not ideal, I think, as one can’t get inside those plastic containers to clean them well, but apparently it has worked OK for them.) David points out that they are in a peri-urban environment, also that the price of milk in Masaka is double that in Mbarara (because of the abundant supply of cows’ milk in Mbarara); but still admits that the enterprise has not so far generated enough income to be profitable.
Dairy-type kids are removed from the does at birth and bottle fed, although they recommend to the villagers that they pan feed, because of the difficulty of cleaning bottles. They get 2-4 liters peak per doe at about 1 mo. fresh, most often about 3l.
They were at one time housing up to 300 goats, and had Anglo-Nubian and Alpine as well as Saanen and Togg, Boer and some local. The dairy-type kids born are now generally at least 87% dairy, and they are selecting for Toggenburg markings. He was most interested to hear about the Togg semen we imported for Makerere University, and hopes some of it can be used on Joy goats.
Big changes are being made: the Dowdys are turning over the enterprise to a young couple from the UK, Jon and Alison Laws, and moving on to breeding 50% dairy goats (as an established breed, he hopes), for distribution to villagers. He mentioned a number of areas he plans to work in, still based probably in Masaka, but wants to begin in the far west (Bujubujo?), where he had just spent the week, as the tribe there has some tradition of milking their local goats. The Joy herd will be reduced to about 45 milkers (from 100) with a total herd size of 100 animals.
At 1 o’clock we joined the group for their mid-day meal of sweet potato, pochu (cornmeal porridge), matoke, cabbage, beans and goat meat, shared informally in the kitchen area. Then we made our way back to Entebbe, with me yielding the driving finally to Silas as we negotiated the evening traffic near Kampala.
No comments:
Post a Comment