Abstract:
The objective of this industrial training is to make students benefit from the skills and knowledge gained from the fields, apply the knowledge they get from the classroom in the field and build confidence in the students. I held my internship at Kasolwe Stock Farm from the 28th of February 2022 to 6th May 2022. KSF is a government farm with five main enterprises; cattle, poultry, piggery, aquaculture and nutrition. It is aimed at training farmers for producing high quality and quantity milk, beef, pork, eggs, chicken, fish and feeds. The major activities include; Pond construction, sexing, sampling, grading, feeding, pond maintenance under aquaculture section, Census, disinfection of all units, inspection, treatment, isolation of sick birds, feeding, cleaning poultry units, collecting eggs, litter management in the poultry section. Feed rationing, feed mixing, postharvest handling and pasture management in the nutrition section. Castration, pregnancy diagnosis, branding, deworming, artificial insemination, dipping, census and verification, inspection, treatment, ear tagging in the cattle section. Spraying, inspection and treatment, deworming, census, post mortem -in goat section.
The training revealed that some of the theory taught in class slightly differs from what is practically done in the field, for example, very few welfare practices are applied in the field. The obvious ones that are observed include, providing shelter, food, treating animals, allowing animals to rest as well as proper restraint of animals during milking among others but when it comes to moving n races, welfare is not followed at all because animals are beaten badly and sometimes, they even bleed.
The training also revealed that production and management in any enterprise are two different broad activities which must move hand in hand for any farm to get the expected profit or even more. Production and management require a lot of hard work, sacrifice, dedication and determination.
It is therefore recommended that more animal husbandry officers should be trained to guide and advise fanners who are facing hardships in production and management.
