Ben Kimoro

Great progress in animal welfare monitoring. Has it been applied on small dairy farms and what was the response?

Quite an interesting article..... Simple procedures applied consistently in a routine manner are key to reducing SCC in milk.

Lovely article which is rich in information. I especially like the positive attributes in regards to possible reduction of GHGs. Just like it has been asked earlier, who are the suppliers in Africa and in Kenya for that matter?

The basics of feeding a dairy cow lie in the saying "more dry matter=more water=more milk=more money". Theanimal you have wwill do very well with an as lib of maize silage and good quality Lucerne hay. This can be supplemented by a grain concentrate with a CP of 14-16%. The feed is best provided as a total mixed ration With an average CP of 15%. It is very difficult to give you a definite ration a ...

Good article on GHGs emission and on the impact of diet manipulation on reduction of the same. Having said that I note the per cent change in terms of methane released. The statement that methane percent is higher isn't correct since what indicated is actually a difference in percentage and hence the statement should respectively be 2.83 & 3.79 percentage points higher. Going by this view then ...

Joe, I couldn't agree with you more on this issue of overconditioning. The need to monitor the body condition cannot be overemphasized too! What is not clear with this information is that the quality of the corn stover/silage being fed. It's possible by just closely examining the dung to see whether there are problems with the rumen fermentative functions. That is why I suggested that availing hi ...

There definitely seems to be a digestive disorder based on the little information provided. Does it chew curd? How long ago was it deformed and is the smell of the dung normal or is there any unusual smell to it? Is the coat normal? My suggestion is that you feed more of what it likes and palatable roughage feeds as you observe its behaviour. Being at the very last stage of pregnancy the size o ...

This is a wonderful review of the protein evaluation systems and provides a critical body of knowledge especially for the ruminant nutritionists with an interest in protein utilization. The comments on the recent additions is quite relevant and useful

Absolutely informative article as it clarifies some of the grey areas regarding the use of aflatoxin contaminated feeds to different classes of livestock. The issue of a testing framework within the dairy industry for smallholders in the tropics is quite evident due to traceability challenges. Aggregating farmers into milk bulking groups could be an opportunity but more crucially there is need to ...

First of all I want to thank the contributors for the useful contributions regarding the use of corn/maize stover. It is a very ubiquitous by product in the tropics but unfortunately it's use especially in Africa has been inadequate due to lack of information on its utilization. The trick with use of poor quality roughages is either to manipulate them to improve rumen fermentation or create fa ...