Development of guidelines for improvement of reproductive management of smallholder beef cattle in five provinces of South Africa

Abstract

Smallholder beef cattle farming in South Africa is characterized as an important free-range farming system with the potential to alleviate poverty and up-lift the economy of rural communities. In this farming system, reproductive performance has been identified as poor with substantial influence on herd growth and profitability. Understanding reproductive performance in smallholder farms in this study required an integrated research approach that first focused on the current farming practices to provide insight into smallholder beef production and constraints, secondly outlining reproductive norms, and finally defining achievable targets and factors associated with reproductive performance to provide guidelines for improvement. A structured questionnaire was used to capture the current beef cattle constraints and herd reproductive management practices. To evaluate reproductive performance, a multilevel-sampling approach was used to identify study sites, beef cattle herds and breeding cows. A total of 3694 cow records were collected from 40 smallholder herds between 2018 and 2019 over two seasons: in Autumn (March to May) for pregnancy diagnosis and in Spring (September to November) for monitoring of confirmed pregnancies. Data on animal and herd management factors such as body condition score (BCS), cow age class, breed type, lactation status, culling non-productive cows, record keeping, and breeding and calving months were recorded to evaluate associations with performance indicators. Farmers demographics showed that the majority of farmers were males over the age of 60 whose farming objective is mainly for sales from informal markets. The major constraints in smallholder beef cattle farms included lack of farming knowledge, understanding of farm business and information communicated by government agencies. The preferred 25th quartile was used to describe the performance benchmark and the GLIMMIX procedure of SAS was utilized to determine animal and management factors influencing reproductive performance. The SAS frequency procedure was used to show average reproductive performance levels. Measures of reproductive performance highlighted that 50% pregnancy rate, 12% fetal and calf loss, extended calving interval (608) and days open (304) currently defines reproductive performance in smallholder farms. However, achievable benchmarks of 54% pregnancy rate, 1.4% fetal and calf loss, days open and calving interval of 152 and 425 days, respectively were established. Poor management practices such as lack of knowledge on body condition scoring prior breeding, culling of old and non-productive cows, record keeping and low bull to cow ratio (p < 0.05) were identified as a standard practice in smallholder farms. Major factors determining reproductive norms included BCS, breed type, breeding and calving months, with breeding month December to March having high likelihood of obtaining pregnant cows and autumn calving season with high fetal and calf loss, extended calving interval and days open. The outcomes of the study were compiled into a set of recommended guidelines for improving reproductive performance in smallholder farms that can be applied by extension and advisory services for improved farm management strategies to enhance reproductive performance in smallholder farms.