Abstract:
I arrived at the Livestock Experimental Station, a government aided farm on 28th February 2022 with seventeen colleagues. The intention was to undergo industrial training for 8weeks, having received acceptance, which was a success. The farm is a Quarantine center which gave chance to know of the superior dairy, pig and chicken breeds that are yet to be distributed throughout the country. Such animals are managed to observe their adaptation to the new environment, feed intake, productivity, among many other attributes that are necessary during recommendation to keep them to the dairy farmers. On that note the training was centered around the management of such animals including feeding, milking, parasitic cleaning of sheds treatment of the sick animals helping them during calving down, assistance in removing retained placentas among many other activities. The dairy breeds included the Jersey that produce milk of high utter fat content, Ayrshire that produce large amounts of milk, Guemsey and Swiss.
The pigs included large white and landrace whereas the chicken Include Kuroiler and Rainbow that are fast-growing, highly adaptable to new environment, among others. The Management
activities in the poultry section included feeding of birds, collection of eggs, sorting them setting, vaccination of chicks, raking of litter prophylactic treatment, vaccination, provision of clean water adlib, grading and selling of chicks and eggs, among others. In all that learnt a new method of ecto-parasitic control, I appreciated the need for proper sanitation, not
only of pens, shades, and equipment used in handling animals but also of those to handle animals to keep away disease and to provide good products fit for human consumption. I faced a challenges such as walking a long distance to the farm due to lack of accommodation facilities at the farm, lack of a hotel or canteens at the farm yet no food was provided. All in all, the training was a success and we were awarded certificates of participation which in improve our CV.
