Mrs. E. Tendo
BP. Mbengwi, Momo Division
Bamenda, Cameroon
I thank you for the opportunity given to me to speak to you about my goat farm. My husband and I are parents of eleven children. And so in 1946 I started rearing goats in order to help our large family have enough meat, especially during the Christmas and New Year celebrations. The second reason was so that I could get manure to apply to my yam and maize in my gardens. It helps greatly with more food and I use the same piece of land every year. I do not need to buy fertilizer. I started with 6 goats: 5 nannies and 1 buck. Now I have 24 adult females: 6 young females and 10 young males, in all a total of 40 goats. I do not keep milk goats because I have no labour.
When I started goat rearing my children and I used to tether or tie them singly in various places where we found good grass. In the evening, we would loosen and let them into an old abandoned house for the night. But we could not increase the number because of frequent transfers of my husband who was a civil servant.
When my husband retired in 1984, we acquired a large piece of land of our own. I then started to increase the number of our goats. We built a small fence and a goat shed for them. But we still tethered them wherever grazing was available and only brought them into the small fence and shed in the evening. This is now getting to be a big problem as I have to do the job alone when the children return to school.
In the rainy season there is enough grass around our compound for the goats but in the dry season there is not enough grass and they grow thin. In the dry season we Let them drink once a day. We do this by taking water in a pan or basin to where we have tied them. We sometimes give them salt.
Recently, I heard from the research people that it was good to feed our goats with cassava peelings or waste, maize stalks, groundnut or haulms which we used to throw away or bury in the farm as manure. This advice has really helped our goats to grow well especially in the dry season when there is very little grass for the goats. Also in this way, I can keep the goats in the little fence and feed them with these farm wastes. It also reduces the burden of tying them and solves the problem of destroying food crops when they break open from the tethers.
I just allow them to breed on their own. That is, the buck lives with the nannies and mates them any time. I do not control the mating or breeding. And when I find a good male I buy it and sell the old one. The adult female produces a kid every year.
Usually when any of the goats has scabies or some other diseases I take them to the Veterinary Clinic for treatment. Sometimes I treat them myself, especially if it is diarrhoea, by using medicine for humans for this disease.
I usually take my goats to the local market and sell them when I need money. When my children come on holidays, I kill one to celebrate their good results. We eat some during Christmas and New Year celebrations. When I visit my children who are now married and working in Yaounde, I take a goat as a gift to them.
The big problem I face in goat farming is the lack of money to build a good large fence and a shed to keep the goats in permanently, for I really want to increase the flock up to over a hundred. It is very difficult for me to apply for a loan. I need technical advice on how to apply for a loan. I also need technical advice on how to build fences and a goat shed. The other problem is that there is no good grass in the dry season for the goats. I just let them eat whatever they can find. I am very happy about my goat farm because it helps us increase our family income, pay school fees, buy clothes, eat fairly adequately and solve other family problems.
I take this opportunity to thank the organisers of this workshop for giving me the chance to be here and the Ministry of Women's Affairs in Mbengwi, Momo, who have given me the encouragement to come to this meeting. Goat rearing is a traditional thing for men but now with their encouragement and advice many women will find it easy to keep goats. Thank you.
