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Bothár - Communist Cows

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Comments

  • #32
    I Heart Internet
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,678 ✭✭✭I Heart Internet


    hfallada wrote: »
    They over Irish animals as Irish cows produce more milk than their ****ty ones. But I can't understand why charities don't teach them family planning as their governments don't do it. We give money to Uganda for development, but yet the average women has 7 children. Countries like Iran and china used family planning to kick start economic growth and it worked.

    Gotta love the Chinese family planning alright - one-child-policy including a side of forced abortions.

    China has realised that it now doesn't have enough (or won't have enough) workers to meet demand. Anyhoo, from a purely, cold-hearted, economics point of view, how does shrinking market size spur economic growth?


  • #33
    jammy_doughnut
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 6 ✭jammy_doughnut


    Femme_Fatale wrote: »
    ITT: Someone has discovered the word "communist" and is using it to try and look smart.

    communism doesn't remotely apply here

    charity or even philanthropy

    my brother gave a cow last January and is planning to give another this coming January


  • #34
    5live
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,438 ✭✭✭5live


    IvyTheTerrible wrote: »
    Would it not make more sense though to put money into breeding programmes for local breeds (that are more suited to climatic conditions) and giving those to the locals?
    Not really. Their animals are well suited to local conditions but there is little animal husbandry involved with them. They are slow growing with poor milk yields and low quality. Fertility is poor and the animals are kept in poor conditions. It would take 20 years, imo, to get to the position where they could even contemplate a breed improvement programme. The Irish animals eliminate 50 years of breeding that they really dont have time or money to implement.

    Also some of the Friesian animals from the irish cows are used as breeding bulls on the local animals which gives a crossbred animal which has a better yield of meat/milk than the local animals and also better adapted to local conditions/diseases than the irish animals.


  • #35
    April O Neill II
    Closed Accounts Posts: 536 ✭✭✭April O Neill II


    131spanner wrote: »
    Not meaning to be that guy
    Well you are. :P :pac:


  • #36
    IvyTheTerrible
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,949 ✭✭✭✭IvyTheTerrible


    5live wrote: »
    Not really. Their animals are well suited to local conditions but there is little animal husbandry involved with them. They are slow growing with poor milk yields and low quality. Fertility is poor and the animals are kept in poor conditions. It would take 20 years, imo, to get to the position where they could even contemplate a breed improvement programme. The Irish animals eliminate 50 years of breeding that they really dont have time or money to implement.

    Also some of the Friesian animals from the irish cows are used as breeding bulls on the local animals which gives a crossbred animal which has a better yield of meat/milk than the local animals and also better adapted to local conditions/diseases than the irish animals.
    Very interesting.
    But if, as you say, the animals are kept in poor conditions, are the Bothar donated animals also kept in poor conditions? By how much does that reduce their yield?


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  • #37
    Paramite Pie
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,312 ✭✭✭Paramite Pie


    "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me communist". Hélder Câmara

    Just a little quote that came to mind. Most people don't know what communism is, including most Communists themselves. Heck even Karl Marx was against Socialism and Communism. He wrote books warning against an upcoming revolution, ironically triggering said revolution!!:p

    In fact there's never been an actual communist country or regime. Except for Neolithic farmers, but the term was not in use then.

    Now back to Africa. In East Africa, cattle is a source of wealth among the tribal people. Cattle are sold as a dowry for marriage. Most families make back their cows by marrying their daughters. If you have many daughters, your family can achieve more (cow related) wealth.

    If you have many sons and few/no daughters, then the family goes broke. In that case many of the sons don't marry and go to work on the mines instead, making money for the corporations pillaging Africa's resources.

    More cows means more farmers and less workers in mines. More cows also means less pressure to try to conceive more daughters. (hopefully)


  • #38
    keithclancy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,157 ✭✭✭keithclancy


    Paramite Pie wrote: »


    Now back to Africa. In East Africa, cattle is a source of wealth among the tribal people. Cattle are sold as a dowry for marriage. Most families make back their cows by marrying their daughters. If you have many daughters, your family can achieve more (cow related) wealth.

    If you have many sons and few/no daughters, then the family goes broke. In that case many of the sons don't marry and go to work on the mines instead, making money for the corporations pillaging Africa's resources.

    More cows means more farmers and less workers in mines. More cows also means less pressure to try to conceive more daughters. (hopefully)

    I thought the whole point of a dowry was to get rid of a daughter.


  • #39
    5live
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,438 ✭✭✭5live


    IvyTheTerrible wrote: »
    Very interesting.
    But if, as you say, the animals are kept in poor conditions, are the Bothar donated animals also kept in poor conditions? By how much does that reduce their yield?
    Thats where the management training comes in. They are taught how, what and when to feed the cows and how much also. The poorest are usually the ones getting the cows and they have little experience of keeping cattle so they are 'easier' to convince about a new way of feeding.

    From the little experience i had, the cows are kept in a stall neat the family house. The cows are hand fed eg feed is brought in and pulped/shredded and fed to the cow. The dung is used to fertilise the veg plots of the family to improve the yield of these too. In one case i saw a farmer use a simple digester to pipe methane gas to his house for some cooking and light thanks to some help from a local agricultural college.

    It does have a knock on effect on the local breeds also as they see improved feeding and management leading to better yields.


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