Francis Mwangi is the founder of Joy Farm located in Lanet, Nakuru County.
The farmer keeps Friesian and Ayrshire cows in his 5 acre farm where he also grows Lucerne and maize fodder.
In a bid to cut costs and make his farm profitable, Mwangi has two coolers, and he grows his own feeds.
Here is his story as told by WoK.
Background
In an interview with Seeds of Gold, Mwangi revealed that he loved the idea of practicing dairy farming since he was a kid.
“My parents kept a single cow we called January, which we milked as we grew up,” he said.
He ventured into dairy farming in 2000 while working in Nakuru when he bought two cows.
However, he ran the unit until 2004 when he was transferred from Nakuru to Nandi where he worked for two years.
In 2006, Mwangi returned to Nakuru where he had purchased a five-acre piece of land and started practicing dairy farming again but his cow died.
Mwangi stayed two years before bouncing back in 2008 after buying four Friesian cows from a farmer who was disposing them.
He bought the four cows at Ksh 50,000 and nurtured them.
“From a litre of milk that they were each giving, they moved to five, then 10 and 15 in three months,” he said.
Driven by passion, he bought three more, then eight others to increase his heard to 15, then 24 and 55 after building a 40 by 128 feet barn.
Number of cows
The biology tutor at Kagumo Teachers Training College currently has 100 dairy cows.
“The livestock stays in the barn in seven groups, starting with the calves, weaners, heifers, bullying heifers, in-calf heifers, dry cows and milkers,” he said.
According to Justus Githinji who is the farm manager, the day at the farm starts at 4 am where the staff of six does cleaning, milking and feeding the animals.
Other than fodder, the milkers are given dairy meal depending on the amount of milk that they produce per day.
“For milkers, we feed them maize silage, hay and lucerne in the ratio of 70, 15 and 15 per cent respectively
“The feeding depends on the stage, with the milkers getting more silage while heifers do with hay alone. We use several ingredients to make the dairy meal.
“They include maize, maize germ, wheat bran, canola, meal, soya meal, lime, salt, toxin binder, bi-carbonate of soda and dairy premix,” Githinji said.
The cows are milked using machines at an interval of eight hours per day, collecting 750 litres of milk with the produce stored in a cooler.
While Mwangi sprays his animals twice a month, he deworms the calves and weaners once a month in a bid to keep pests and diseases at bay.
He vaccinates his cows twice a year against foot and mouth and lumpy skin diseases.
Mwangi cited fluctuating milk prices as some of major challenges that he is dealing with.
“The cost of running a dairy business is high but you can cushion yourself by planting maize for silage and growing fodder like lucerne. These are the small things make the difference,” he said.
