by popular demand...

[js302]

So guys, cattle ranching in Gabon, Central Africa...

A little preamble...

Gabon is a very sparsely populated country. I believe it only has 1.2 million people and is 78% Forest.

I know that cattle ranching is not the most eco-friendly activity on the planted. Far from it! But I think it has its justifications. I think Gabon is the 7th most expensive country in the world when we look at income in relation to the expenditure of the average family.

For protein, a vast number of people rely on bushmeat (which is detrimental to ecosystem balance) and fish. Bushmeat hunting is also aided quite unintentionally by logging companies because they clear roads which gives hunters greater access to previously undisturbed areas of the forest..

There is no commercial ranching in Gabon per se. My intention is to help to bring down food (protein prices) by helping to produce meat for the domestic market. This should steer people away from hunting and buying bush meat because studies in West Africa have shown (although I’m in Central Africa) that people want ‘fresh meat’ rather than any specific type, i.e. at this point in time they would sooner go for bushmeat than imported frozen beef that has been frozen and thawed who knows how many times. This meat is also relatively expensive. It is imported from Cameroun or South America.



This is a quarantine site I’m working on at the moment on a plantation not actually a ranch.
They are Zebu breed heifers whereas we normally work with the N'dama breed.

The next pics are views from the ranch.
It really is a beautiful place. Hippo, bush buck, water buck, buffalo, anteaters, caiman crocs, grey parrots and of course snakes...

The mist over the mountains, a common sight in the mornings...

This is us loading the cattle into the transport truck once they are through with quarantine some weeks later depending...
it really is an amazing truck, a Mercedes Actros truck and a Pezzaioli trailer. Anyone interested in truck let me know pics wise...

This is the cattle truck arriving on the ranch and driving into one of the pastures with part of a new breeding herd...

This is where I live, there is also a herd of horses which roam around in the days and have their grain in the mornings and evenings at the stables.
This is them grazing by where I live one morning...

Sometimes we go out on the boat. The water is beautiful, no pollution at all. I love fishing and would love to get a fly rod with some dry flies. I see fish come up to the surface all the time to take insects. There are also loads of bottom dwellers (lots of catfish is eaten here and syndontis looking fish).
This would be a jet skier’s paradise...

A really beautiful waterfall about 20 feet tall

These are the N'dama cattle coming to one of the care sections once a week for their anti-parasitic bath...

Now u guys wanted some snake pics right?

African Rock Pythons I believe. There are also puff adders (gaboon vipers), other vipers, long green mamba looking snakes (I really hope they are not) and a myriad of littler guys.

Unfortunately these snakes are dead. They take calves and so are killed once they are discovered all sluggish and full bellied. Anyone who catches a live one without a calf is given a bonus and the snake is relocated to an uninhabited area. As you can see they get pretty big...

And a lucky hatchling who was lucky enough to be relocated far far away!

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There is plenty more where that came from,
Let me know...

 

[King Edward]

Beef is a very inefficient way to produce protien, and lots of ventures like yours, that try to bring western preferences, have failed. As you say, the people prefer bushmeat. Why not farm bushmeat like grass cutters (mind your fingers). Rabbits are far more efficient, but can struggle with the heat. Guinea pig farming is rapidly spreading all over west africa. Small fast breeding animals have less environmental impact and convert plants to protein much more efficiently...Sad to see those MASSIVE snakes dead. We used to kill them on our farm too, but I regret it now. I would love to find out whats living in that river! Thanks for sharing and good luck, PS I'd love some fish pictures, and a hippo if you got one, Think I could keep a herd in my 55G? Its heavily planted, lol!

 

[balton777]

The photos are fabulous....thanks for posting them.

 

[davo]

Amazing mate... thanks for posting the insight into it all. Shame you're forced to kill the rock pythons...

 

[Mad About Cichlids]

Nice pix

Such a beautiful place to live.

 

[js302]

Beef is a very inefficient way to produce protien, and lots of ventures like yours, that try to bring western preferences, have failed. As you say, the people prefer bushmeat. Why not farm bushmeat like grass cutters (mind your fingers). Rabbits are far more efficient, but can struggle with the heat. Guinea pig farming is rapidly spreading all over west africa. Small fast breeding animals have less environmental impact and convert plants to protein much more efficiently...Sad to see those MASSIVE snakes dead. We used to kill them on our farm too, but I regret it now. I would love to find out whats living in that river! Thanks for sharing and good luck, PS I'd love some fish pictures, and a hippo if you got one, Think I could keep a herd in my 55G? Its heavily planted, lol!

Ok. I see where ur coming from. Ur quite right. However, the approach is not as western as you may think. In terms of inefficient, I think you mean that kg intake is far greater that kg weight gain. This is a problem where feed supplements are expensive and land for pasture is expensive. Here, the cattle do have food supplements and believe me, these supplements are acquired at very very low cost. Like I stated previously, Gabon is very sparsely populated and no communities were actually displaced or adversely affected by the placement of the ranch.

We have not yet even nearly reached total ranch capacity and so we are nowhere near food limited. We have plenty of reserve pastures and cattle gain weigh in the dry and in the rainy season. There are inefficiencies I agree completely, but these are down to intrinsic cattle biological qualities. These qualities can be altered hormonally but that does not happen here.

Rabbits, which do exist here (I see wild hares quite often) and I think are feral are not a species that it would be a good idea to breed intensively. Rabbit cause huge levels of damage to the environment when certain ones inevitably escape and reproduce in the wild. Bad for all sorts other trophic levels considering rabbits are such generalist feeders. Especially here in the plains and rainforest
The ranch is quite beneficial to the LOCAL environment I feel and we encourage wildlife diversity. Hunting and traps strictly forbidden on the ranch. There are many species of butterflies which feed on starch from cow dung. There are many birds which feed on insects reliant on the cow dung. Hippo come in from the water to the salt licks intended for the cattle and elephants regularly break the salt containers to feed freely on the salt.

I agree with grass cutter rearing. It’s a good business but very difficult considering the temperament and very stress prone and timid nature of grass cutters. Grass cutter meat would fetch good prices.

It’s a real shame that the snakes are killed when they are killed but this is by no means a form of population control. In relation to fecundity and fertility of herps, u’d have to kill over 50% of the population in a year to actually bring their numbers down in the long term. How many eggs to you thing a massive snake like that laid in her lifetime? How many of those offspring made it to reproduce successfully? Quite a few! I’m not justifying killing snakes at all, but technically, our killing of the snakes should have little effect on their prevalence as a species.

I know little of guinea pig farming. I know they are bred in West Africa for medical research. I’ll try to find out more.

im sure we could work something out for ur 55 no problem! But we'd undoubtedly get those "ur gonna need to upgrade that tank" comments!

I'll get some fishy pics up soon... hippo difficult, maybe some hippo tracks, same for elephant.

 

[flemming]

poor snakes,got also pictures from fish?