Baraton University
Baraton University is in North Nandi District. It has total of 11 employees working in its Dairy unit.
The farm uses ABS semen and has 304 animals. Of these 80 are lactating and the average milk yield per day is 1000 liters. The cows are fed on Rhodes grass, Oats, Napier grass and there is a large Silage stock in the unit. The milk is consumed by Students by the university. Some of the products are Ice cream, Yoghurt, Mala and Cheese. Their target is improvement for animals and consequently get more milk without necessarily increasing the herd.
The quality control procedure undertaken in the dairy is analysis of butterfat content. Farmers in the surrounding areas visit this farm to learn more on dairy farming.

Eldoret Express- Ayrshire farm
Location: Trans Nzoia District.
The farm has a total of 42 ABS calves and ABS is the sole provider of Semen. At the moment the farm gets 800-900 liters of milk/day. The Milk is sold to KCC and Nyota dairies. Animals are grazed in paddocks and during the dry season are fed on Hay. With ABS they have access to a service provider who is easily available.

There is no problem with market and it is envisaged that the number of high quality animals will increase with usage of ABS semen. The achievements in the last year have been reduction in deaths of calves and an increase in milk production. Only 5 calves died last year from the total number of animals of 252.

Mr Micah Bowon– Farmer
Location: West Pokot District
This farmer in West Pokot and gets 24 liters from his highest producer. He has both Ayrshires and Friesians.West Pokot is normally perceived as hostile and when he begun keeping cows his neighbors told him that all the animals would die. A few years later 4 of his neighbors have also started keeping animals.

He has set aside 9 acres for silage for the animals and makes his own rations of Omena and poultry waste. He intends to have 20 cows as market is not a problem to him. The region around Lodwar is still unexplored.

Butongoria Farm
There are 119 animals in this farm of which 22 are lactating and producing on average 280
liters a day. The highest producing animal is giving 18 liters a day.

There is an attempt to synchronize cows to lactate mainly during the dry season. Some
problems which have hampered attempts by the farm to grow are ECF and Mastitis.
Conception rates have improved to 80% and most cows calve annually.

Cows are fed in the paddocks though there is a quarter acre of Lucerne, 2 acres of Napier
and 5 acres of maize.

The main suppliers of semen are ABS TCM Ltd. (approx 95%) and WWS (approx (5%).
Originally the genetics were acquired from CAIS

Lochab farm
Giti Lochab is a farmer in Uasin Gishu with 55 cows of which 41 are lactating at the moment.

The highest animals Kongo and Kipkaren produce 36 liters of milk a day each. Feeding
is principally on silage of which there is a large stock of it produced from his 40-acre farm.
They also have a good feed ration of molasses, fish meal and cotton seed cake, 2nd grade
wheat, Sudan grass and Columbus grass. Milk is sold locally and to Brookside and the
farmer cannot satisfy demand for his milk.

The main reason that the farmer has for using ABS is very good marketing and very good semen.

The main problem at the farm at the moment is repeat in insemination which is at 60-70% of the time.

The farm is organizing to train their own inseminator.

Korir- Uasin Gishu District
Mr. Korir is a small scale farmer with four cows. He began keeping animals in 2002 and started straight with ABS.He got good advice from the ABS team. Currently he has a herd of 3 dairy cows in an area of less than ¼ acre.

Says Korir: “I intended to have something for the house around 4 liters but I ended up with much better animals which are giving me 18 liters”

He sells all his milk in Eldoret. He intends to later increase his dairy herd because it is a good business. Consequently he will increase the acreage of the feeds for the cows. His message to similar farmers is determination. The calf is a Guernsey.

Baraka farm
Interview with Jos Creemers
The farm operates on the principle of excellence. Between 1998 and 2002 the farm used
ABS genetics principally. At the time of the visit their were 47 lactating cows out of 120
cows with an average output of 920 liters a day.

The best producing cow is doing 33 liters a day. The best ABS has a potential of 40 liters/day. Milk is sold to Spinknit which collects 550 liters/day and the rest is used for making Yoghurt, Mala and cheese. The cheese is mainly Gouda it’s the best in the country.

They have planted a lot of forages for the animals. Silage is also made in large quantities.

On average at least a group visits monthly and usually they are interested in
· Calf rearing
· Feed conservation
· And a slight interest on processing

The goal is to constantly produce 1000 liters a day while keeping the dairy herd as small
as is possible. The manager however feels there is a need to get more timely information
on genetics.

Some of the problems in the farm are: calf rearing and improvement on conception rates.
There is also no investments generally on research in the country an example being
Boma rhodes which has remained the same yet other countries are making advancements.

To be successful in Dairy Jos feels “you have to like it a lot to stay in the farm 24 hours a day 7 days a week”