Starting Herd Work in Kokosa

To all:

On Thursday Abera and I worked with a crew to set up the chute for working the heifers. The heifers are much smaller framed animals than I had anticipated. I think that we can breed them to the Jersey bulls but I am not comfortable putting embryos in them.

Native Arsi heifers. They are very small and can not be used for embryo recipients

Due to this change, on Friday we went ahead and started the synchronization of the heifers. Two of them were already pregnant so we left them alone. The 10 Boran heifers arrived Friday evening so we set them up also.

Constructing the chute and coral for working the cattle

We spent two hours total on Thursday and Friday getting in and out of the farm from the main road. This is after Abera spent a lot of time on the road. He has it all level but when it rains the surface becomes like grease and there is no traction to go up and down the small hills. He had proposed some rock being brought in but that had not been approved yet. I gave him the approval and he started a crew working on it. When the Boran heifers came we had to unload them on the main road and walk them to the farm.



Lonny J. Ward

Morrell Agro Industries PLC

"Sowing Hope and Prosperity"