Fattenning of American Brahman Crossbred by Small Farmers

Abstract

The small farmers from each of the two villages of Kamphaeng saen district Nakhon Pathom provice were selected to fatten beef cattle of Native X American Brahman crossbred. Each farmer was to fatten two cattle. Thai research was designed to find the growth rate (or average daily gain) and the feed efficiency of the cattle fattened by small farmers as well as the income obtained from fattening the animals and the willingness of the small farmers to continue the fattening. The period of this project was during the year of 1986-1988. This research project revealed that during the period of 6-8 months of fattening, the steers growth rate resulted from fattening in the earlier period was higher than that in the later period. The average daily gains (ADG) throughout fattening of younger and older steers were 0.675 and 0.715 kg/head/day respectively. In each day, a steer consumed 3.9 kgs of concentrate and 18.74 kgs of roughage. In other words, the total daily dry matter consumed by aster was 7.24 kgs/head/day or about 2.32% of its body weight. As for the feed efficiency, it was found that a steer required 10.18 kgs of dry matter to gain 1 k.g. of its body weight. In addition, regarding cost and income, it was found that fattening a steer needed the cost of about 9,000 baht and it yielded the net income of 2,000-3,000 baht. If the costs in kind, namely, labor, building, roughage, and etc. were excluded, the net income would increase to about 4,000 baht. All small farmers were satisfied with the obtained profit because it was higher as compared to those of their main occupations, namely, sugarcane growing and rice farming. However, when this project was terminated, it was found that only two from ten small farmers decided to keep on cattle fattening. The most important problem causing them to stop cattle fattening was lack of investment. The other problems were rarity of steers and the increasing price of the steers to be fattened. Therefore, it can be concluded that fattening of beef cattle as additional occupation to small farmers yields the satisfactory income. However, the feasibility of this business depends on close supervision since small farmers are always faced with many problems of fattening.