LIVESTOCK professionals from various parts of Nigeria were recently tutored on bovine artificial insemination and reproductive ultrasonography for cattle production by Real People Concept, a company renowned for animal reproduction.
The 5-day training and presentation of certificates to participants was held at Real People Cattle Hub domiciled along Ikire-Ile, Ododo, Iwo, Osun State.
Managing Director of the company, Mr Tunmise Olagbaju, noted that such training is very crucial to cattle reproduction in the country because:”Our indigenous breeds of cattle have very poor performance in terms of calving intervals and calving rate.
“Calving interval means when a cow calve now, how long after does a cow calve? Normally for a serious cattle business, cows should calve once a year or at worse every 14 months. Because if you are milking a cow, you would milk it for about 10 months, so you should milk it about one month to calving.
“If you have a longer dry period, that means your milk production is going to be very poor and if you want to have profitable productivity, then it is important that you are able to shorten the production cycle.
“In the case of cattle breed improvement, the Federal Government has done a lot in terms of cattle breed improvement.
There are lot of articial insemination project that has been done, but some of these projects cannot confirm the success until about nine months when they are expecting the cow to calve and the cow is not calving, so it is then they will realise that the cow is not pregnant.”
He further stated that:”Artificial Insemination is like number four to six in the process. Many people do not consider the fertility of the cow, the health of the cow and the quality of the semen that they use.
“A lot of things can be responsible for failure in the process of artificial insemination and that is why we have taken it upon ourselves to organise this training to teach other people on how best to go in the process of artificial insemination for cattle production.”
Olagbaju, however, urged the participants to ensure they put into practice the knowledge they have acquired. “Practice makes perfection. Whatever knowledge or skill you gathered, you have to continue to practice for it to be part of you, my messsage to them is that they should continue to practice.
“Our cattle hub is here for them to sharpen their skill, they are always welcome to come practice on our farm even if they do not have facilities to practice on their own.”
The Chairman of the occasion, who is also the Deputy Provost, College of Agriculture, Bowen University, Iwo, Osun State, Professor Tunde Lawal, commended the organisers of the training, with a plea to them not to relent. “Real People Concept would soon be a large employer of labour such as livestock production companies in Nigeria.”
He also lauded the traditional ruler of the host community, the Onigege of Igege, Oba Kazeem Adio Orioye, stating that his positive intentions towards the development of the community which made him and other community leaders gave Real People Concept the opportunity to operate would take it to greater height.
SOURCE: TRIBUNE
