Expert advises unemployed youth to embrace livestock farming
Livestock
By Chidinma Ewunonu-Aluko
Ibadan, Aug.10, 2018 (NAN) Dr Festus Ajayi, a Principal Research Fellow at the Institute of Agricultural Research and Training, Ibadan, has urged the unemployed youth to go into livestock farming to be gainfully employed.
Ajayi gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Ibadan.
He urged the unemployed to have passion for livestock production and study it managerial programme to succeed.
Ajayi, who is also the institute’s Head of Livestock Improvement Programme, said that cattle, sheep, goat production, processing and marketing were good sources of income generation.
“These are opportunities that can eradicate poverty.
“For instance, sheep or goat reaches breeding age between 8 and 9 months while their gestation period is about 150 days and with good management they can produce twice a year.
The marketing of the animals and their skins are a big business opportunities.
“A cow produces a calf after 278 days of gestation and with adequate management it can weigh between 250 and 300kg before three years, which is ripe for sale.
“The processing of the products such as hides (a source of foreign exchange), bone, horn, blood etc and the marketing of the animals alive or on hoof are good businesses,” he said.
Ajayi said that the production, processing and marketing of pigs were business opportunities for the unemployed because the gestation period of a pig was between 115 and 120 days and could produce up to 8 piglets at first parturition.
According to him, the pig (sow) can reproduce again after weaning the piglets at 6 weeks. A sow can produce between 10 and 17 piglets per year under good management system. Pig meat (pork) can be processed to products like burgers.
“The commercial feed milling business can also be done on small and large scale depending on the available fund or capital.
“Setting up a feed mill could be gradual as the main equipment are the hammer mill and silo(s) (capacity depends on scale of production). It’s a lucrative business for the unemployed because feed has a high turnover.
“There is also the dairy production and milk processing business, which is lucrative and can improve the livelihood of farmers,” he said.
He said that rabbits breed at 6 months of age while grass cutter breeds at 8 to 10 months, adding that the gestation period of rabbit is 4 weeks (30 days).
He stressed that a rabbit could produce more than 5 kids at every parturition and could produce five times in a year.
“Grass cutter produces twice a year with at least four to five kids at parturition. A colony of grass cutter (a male or buck and 4 female) can sell for between N50,000 and N60,000,” the animal scientist said. (NAN)
CC/JI/AFA
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Editing by Joseph Idika/Felix Ajide