Farmers in Namibia need to understand the nutritional requirements and recommended daily intake of supplements of their livestock, as livestock farming has become costly, particularly livestock feed and lick supplements.

This was said by Agribank’s Technical Advisor on Livestock and Rangeland, Erastus Ngaruka, who noted that this will also help farmers to manage lick and feed effectively.

Ngaruka in a media statement Friday advised that commercial supplements are formulated to satisfy specific nutritional targets where an animal is supposed to eat a specified amount of a particular supplement per day to meet its daily nutritional requirements. He said production supplements have higher recommended daily intake levels than the maintenance supplements, with the recommended daily intake for dry veld concentrate at 500 grams (g) per day, whereas production lick is 1 000g and more per day. Roughage feed supplementation is also based on the dry matter intake requirement of an animal per day.

“An animal will at least need to eat an amount of roughage feed equivalent to three per cent of its body weight per day. These estimates will help a farmer to budget and provide supplements effectively given the number of animals targeted,” said Ngaruka.

However, a lot of farmers do not use these estimates and end up losing out by either buying more or less than required which compromises productivity and income, he added, before urging farmers to start relating feed costs to total feed utilisation because any supplement introduced should be effectively utilised by the animal to achieve the targeted production objective.

Ngaruka went on to say livestock requires nutrients such as protein, energy, minerals and vitamins, as well as water. He noted that the cheapest source of feed is rangeland.

According to the bank’s technical advisor, lick and feed should either be for maintenance or for production purposes.

The maintenance supplement is used to maintain the minimum daily nutritional needs of an animal, while the production supplement is aimed at satisfying the high levels of nutrients that help increase the production level of an animal.

Source: Namibia Press Agency