How to reap big from dairy farming – lessons from NYS Yatta Camp

Jane Wajiru, a corporal at Yatta National Youth Service Camp (NYS) Camp, Machakos county. We meet her supervising NYS servicemen who were milking cows in the camp at 12 noon. The servicemen driving cows one by one to the milking parlor. Here, mechanical milking machine is used to ease the work for the officers since the cows produces massive amounts of milk that can overwhelm the milkmen. Yatta NYS Camp is located along Thika-Garissa Road, 100 kilometers from Nairobi city.

Jane is in charge of the dairy cows reared in the camp. She takes us around to see how they have revolutionize the dairy farm in the camp.  They have 38 dairy cows to which 15 of them are producing 310 litres of milk per day. Other are in gestation period and some are heifers. She says that they milk the cow three times a day starting from 3am in the morning, at 11am and at 4pm. She adds that they use milking machine but the same machine might be overwhelmed in a few months owing to the constant increase in milk production.

50 per cent increase in milk production

“We have 38 cows. Fifteen of them produces 310 litres of milk everyday. Last year, we used to produce 200 litres but now the we have reached more that 300 litres. Here, we do total zero grazing. We feed cows with silage and other feeds to ensure that they get all the necessary nutrients for optimum milk production. We milk three times everyday. The first milking begins at 3am and the second at 11am and at 4pm. We use a machine to milk but it getting overwhelmed because it takes quite sometime to complete milking all these cows,” corporal Jane says.

The success story at Yatta Camp echoes broader trends in Kenya’s dairy industry, a sector proving to be a lucrative agricultural pursuit. However, pervasive poor dairy practices, particularly among farmers rearing traditional cow breeds with lower milk yields, still hinder progress in rural areas.

According to Kenya Dairy Board, the country produced up to 5 billion litres of milk annually as of June 2022 with the projection of production rising to 12 billion litres annually. Jane says that for a farmer to make profits, they have to ensure that a cow gives birth to one every years. Without that, the farmer is making losses.

“A cow should give you a calf annually. That is how you can make profit. If you can’t get a calf every year, you are making losses,” she says.

Synchronization of animals

One of the most intriguing aspects of Jane’s methodology is the synchronization of cows’ reproductive cycles. By administering a hormone called GNHR, Yatta Camp achieves synchronized heat periods and uniform insemination with AI seeds. This cutting-edge technique not only ensures consistent calving times but also allows farmers to preselect the sex of the calves during insemination.

“We use a hormone called GNHR to synchronize animals to get heat at the same time and then we administer semen at the same time also. We administer this hormone once per week for two consecutive weeks and in the third week, the cows will get heat and then get inseminated. This means the cows will give birth at exactly the same time as you can see the calves that we have are of the same age and size,” she shares.

Addressing challenges head-on, Jane discusses disease management at the farm. She says that swift action is taken, including immediate veterinary intervention whenever a cow displays signs of illness. The team’s commitment to health and prompt responses safeguards their herd. She also pointed out to milking machine as another challenge saying that another machine is needed to avoid delays when milking because untimely milking affects the cows too.

“When a cow is ill, we call the vet (veterinary) officer immediately. That way, we eliminate diseases affecting cows. The milking machine is also another challenge because it’s only one and we have many cows to milk which causes delays which affects the cows,” she says.

The use of technology in dairy farming will greatly improve sector. Synchronization of cows is vital in ensuring the cows gives birth once per year. Such technologies, if adopted by dairy farmers across the country, it will double milk production as well increase the income for farmers and also create job opportunities.