Animals

Powdered goat's milk is one of the world's biggest agricultural value-adding businesses because it is more digestible than cow's milk. Now former Zimbabwean farmer Jean Vos and his brother-in-law François de Chalain have tapped into the potentially lucrative local market with their Saanen goat's milk products.

Never before in the history of South African pigeon racing have as many birds been lost in training as now. Since May this year, large numbers of racing pigeons have failed to return from training flights and race events.

Competitive long-distanc e riding tests the stamina of both horse and rider.

Last week I wrote about the champion stock of Bradbury Lofts, and this week's article focuses on their racing methods.

Ron Thomson has written a refreshing and hard-hitting book to remind hunters, game ranchers and ordinary nature lovers where they fit into the bigger conservation picture. Roelof Bezuidenhout reviews a book that pulls no punches.

In only 32 years Smithfield Merino farmer Eddie Prinsloo has increased the ewe crop on Heuningkrans Stud from 500 to about 2 000, and in February this year at its sale, Heuningkrans achieved an average price per ram of R7 300 - the highest average price ever achieved by a single Merino breeder in South Africa. Gavin Isted writes.

'Sansor notes that neither kikuyu nor rye grass could pose a threat [to biodiversity].

It will cost a Limpopo cattle farmer about R12,75/kg to produce a weaner, which will be sold for about R12/kg on average.

In 2003 Reuter Sorour and Andrew Tilsley, joined later by neighbour Alec Botha, began producing organic-in-conversion milk for Woolworths via their national organic centre for milk production near Bloemfontein, Homsek Dairy. Today Andrew and Alec have reverted to conventional milk production while Reuter remains deeply disillusioned, thanks to what they call a controversial certification process and a battle to receive significant premiums for their milk. Mike Burgess visited the farmers near Ficksburg to hear their side of the story.

Aromatherapy is the use of essential oils to improve the emotional, and in turn the physical wellness of the animal being treated.

Buks Bradbury was practically born in the pigeon lofts of his father Peter, but only took up the sport later in life.

In part one (Farmer's Weekly, 25 May 2007), Art McDonald told us the secret of an “ideal horse” was the balance of its proportions. In the second article, based on an interview published in American Horse and Rider 30 years ago, Diane C Simmons found out how McDonald used a computer program he developed to improve his breeding.

It is not uncommon to find a horse that bolt s its feed. This means that it eats so fast that it hardly chews or breathes.

The husband and wife team of Joe and Belinda Strydom auctioned off most of their precious racing pigeons in Edenvale on 27 May.

South African cattle breeder Nico Olivier has negotiated semen and embryo exchange with top studs in Paraguay and Brazil. Animals from Nico's Angus Africa stud are winning championships and strengthening gene pools in the huge South American cattle industry. Glenneis Erasmus found out more.

MEC for Agriculture and Environmental Affairs in KZN, Mtholephi Mthimkhulu, has committed R100 ­million to the ­rehabilitation of dilapidated livestock dip tanks and the formation of livestock associations in the province's communal areas this year.

Farmers in the Eastern Cape towns of Indwe and Dordrecht have sustained huge losses of their Merino sheep as they are attacked, killed and mauled by stray dogs. Tim and Sharon Salmon investigate.

Riders must choose a bit to suit their young horse's shape and development.

Cyril Leibach is a distinguished SA pigeon fancier who takes pleasure in racing pigeons from an orderly loft complex in the garden of his Boksburg residence.

The mention of hunting brings to mind pictures of men with guns posing proudly amid a sea of animal carcasses. But the truth is somewhat different. Roelof Bezuidenhout reports on a study that found that often being merely outdoors is a greater consideration than actually killing animals.