14 May 2024

Yesterday marked another historic milestone for Botswana’s livestock industry as the country received the second consignment of imported breeding animals.

Receiving the livestock  procured from Australia, at Sir Seretse Khama International Airport, President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi said the batch consisted of 150 breeding dairy goats, and 92 breeding beef cattle.

He said two of the 92 procured cattle (a Droughtmaster heifer and a Murray Grey bull) were donations from the suppliers from whom government procured the animals.

The 92 beef cattle breeds comprised of two Black Angus bulls and six heifers, six Red Angus heifers, one Red Brahman and five heifers, five Charolaise heifers, two Red Factor Charolaise and four heifers.

The consignment also included three Limousine bulls and four heifers, five Droughtmaster bulls and 13 heifers, of which one heifer was a donation.

Dr Masisi said of the 92 beef cattle one was a Murray Grey bull that was a donation from the producers and three Murray Grey heifers, five Santa Gertrudis heifers, four Simmental bulls (including calf) and five heifers, two Shorthorn bull and two heifers and four Wagyu bulls and eight heifers.

As for the dairy goat breeds, Dr Masisi said the consignment included 45 Saanen does and five bucks, 45 British Alpine does and five bucks, 41 Toggenberg does and five bucks, and three Nubian Goats does and one buck.

President Masisi said government was determined to ramp up production and multiplication of the national herd.

For cattle, he said the target was to grow it from the current 1.5million to 3.5 million, and for small stock to grow from 1.2 million to 4 million by 2027.

“We are working on overdrive towards making Botswana the backbone of quality breeding animals and germplasm (embryos & semen) sourced from world-renowned breeders.

“This is a national project aimed at reversing the declining national herd and improving its genetic merit using Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) and genomics,” said Dr Masisi.

He said some of the breeds from Phase 2 importation were similar to those imported from the United States during Phase 1.

“This was meant to increase genetic diversity within the breed,” he explained.

He said since the arrival of the Phase I consignment that comprised of 161 breeding cattle in May 2023, only four of the animals had died.

President Masisi applauded the caretaker officers for the good work that had kept the mortality as low as three per cent, which was within the acceptable annual mortality rate of five per cent or less by international standards.

He said the training of bulls (from the United States consignment) for semen tapping was also progressing well and soon their semen would be available to the farming community. Ends