The diploma thesis is divided into three parts: cattle herd management, ethology and economic evaluation. The observation was carried out on the farm which is situated in the mountain region of Šumava mountain with decreasing agricultural production. The main production is cattle breeding without market milk production. These meat breeds (Hereford, Aberdeen angus, Charolais) are bred there.

In my work are confronted two farms with cattle breeding in Southbohemical district. One of them is farming ecological and the other conventional. Both farms are situated in the foothills of the Bohemian Forest. On the farms are bred two breeds- Holstein and Czech Spotted Cattle, on each one hundert cattles. I focused on composition of feeding ration, feed quality and its prospective influence on milk composition. In work are graphic compared the reservoir samples of milk from ecological and conventional farm with average values of districts České Budějovice and Český Krumlov. There are also compared for example milk fat, protein and somatic cells. In individual samples were analysed- citric acid, pH and conductivity of milk.

This work concerns the evaluation of noise pollution surroundings of the company in foothills the Šumava, which deal of cattle suckler. The base of this work is the noise measurements at selected sites and his evaluation. The part of this work is the questionnaire survey in the surrounding pastures.

Orientador: Silvia Hunold Lara / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciencias Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-11T09:41:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Medrado_Joana_M.pdf: 2183229 bytes, checksum: 25ceaca6e95dd15b6fc40bbb842e1b9b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / Resumo: Nessa dissertação, focalizamos uma região de pecuária do nordeste baiano nas duas últimas décadas do século XIX com o intuito de investigar as estratégias de ação e a cultura política dos vaqueiros em relação aos fazendeiros. Utilizamos fontes que tocavam mais de perto nessa relação: processos crimes sobre furto de animais, cartas enviadas por vaqueiros ao barão de Geremoabo e narrativas em verso e prosa a respeito da coragem dos vaqueiros para domar o gado bravio do patrão. Dessa forma, acessamos as formas sutis de dominação e resistência existentes nesse contexto. Ao contrário do que supunham autores como Euclides da Cunha, que visitou a região de Canudos durante a guerra de 1896, não havia uma ¿servidão inconsciente¿ de vaqueiros em relação aos fazendeiros. Com o absenteísmo dos proprietários, os vaqueiros desenvolveram formas de impor respeito e serem socialmente reconhecidos conquistando um prestígio que os diferenciava dos trabalhadores ¿comuns¿. Reiterado em muitas ocasiões, este prestígio servia de contraponto à tentativa dos fazendeiros de manter um controle total sobre suas propriedades e sobre seus trabalhadores. Em suma: as negociações por mais autonomia laboral e melhores condições de vida e trabalho nessa região de pecuária passavam pela construção de valores como dignidade, honra, liberdade, orgulho profissional e, até mesmo, de um imaginário sobre habilidades mágicas do vaqueiro / Abstract: This thesis focuses on a cattle-breeding zone in Bahia, in northeastern Brazil, during the last two decades of the nineteenth century, with the aim of investigating the cultural and ¿political¿ strategies of highly-skilled cowmen (vaqueiros) vis-à-vis their rancher employers. It uses sources that go the the heart of the relations between the two groups: trial records conceerning the stealing of animals, letters sent by cowmen to the Baron of Geremoabo and narratives in verse and prose regarding the courage of these workers in taming the ranchers¿ wild cattle. As a result, one obtains insight into the subtle forms of domination and resistance that existed in this particular context. In contrast to what some authors supposed ¿ including Euclides da Cunha, who visited the region of Canudos during the national government¿s ¿war¿ on that town in 1896 ¿ cowmen did not live in ¿unconscious servitude¿ to ranchers. Because of the prevailing absenteism of landowners, these skilled workers were able to devise ways of making themnselves respected and socially recognized, thereby gaining a status that differentiated them from ¿common¿ laborers. Reaffirmed on many occasions, this status was a counterpoint that put limits on ranchers¿ attempts to maintain total control over their properties and their workers. In sum, in this cattle-breeding region the negotiation by skilled cowmen of greater autonomy and better conditions of life and labor depended on their collective construction of values such as dignity, honor, freedom, and professional pride, and even on their cultivating an image of themselves in the social imagination as magical tamers of cattle in the wild / Mestrado / Historia Social / Mestre em História

Beef constitutes an important part of many consumers’ diets. Beef is the most consumed red meat in South Africa. Consumer perceptions can affect the whole supply or value chain of beef. Recently there has been increased interest in food safety; greater concern for environmental and animal welfare issues, increased importance of eating quality and healthy food as well as the greater role of food services. The demand for beef is no longer limited to economic factors alone but to non-economic factors as well. Consumers of beef in Alice have become more concerned about meat-borne risks and personal health. This research prioritized the exploration of the beef consumers’ (i) self-perception (ii) price perception (iii) benefit perception [in the form of – (a) value perception and (b) quality perception]. The study was conducted in the Eastern Cape Province specifically in Alice town and the surrounding rural areas (Ntselamanzi, Gaga, Hillcrest, Gqumashe, and Dyamala) of the Nkonkobe municipality. Anyone who admitted to eating beef and at the point of data collection bought beef for their own consumption or family consumption was deemed as a unit of analysis. Non – probabilistic sampling techniques which included accidental and random sampling were used to collect data from 100 interviewees. A semi structured questionnaire was used to analyse the perceptions and attitudes of beef consumers. The respondents were asked to indicate their agreement or disagreement with 47 statements or items presented on either five alternatives in a Likert scale scored from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) or a six Likert scale ranging from 1 (very low) through 5 (very high) to 6 (I do not know).The data was analysed using SPSS. It was discovered that beef consumers did not consider either intrinsic or extrinsic cues in isolation when purchasing beef but rather all characteristics contribute to the final perception. The Alice consumer market is heterogeneous and consists of different races with different cultures and market segments with varying needs and preferences. The results showed that five factors were extracted from forty seven items Factor 1: Information reliance and quality indication; Factor 2: convenience; Factor 3: Traceability and animal Welfare; Factor 4: Health and safety Conscious and Factor 5: Price and Branding. Furthermore, four main consumer segments emerged as - Segment 1: Informed buyers; Segment 2: Elite buyers; Segment 3: Health & safety conscious buyers and Segment 4: Apathetic buyers. The cluster analysis shows that quality is a subjective concept that is informed by a consumer’s personal taste and preferences. Taste and preferences inform the consumer’s effective demand which in retrospect is informed by the consumer’s socioeconomic status.

The objective of the study was to evaluate cow reproductive performance in the sweetveld and sourveld communal grazing areas of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. In the first experiment, farmer perceptions were obtained using participatory rural appraisals. Farmers ranked lack of fences, tick-borne diseases, poor animal condition during winter and poor breeding practices, respectively as major constraints limiting cattle production in the Eastern Cape. Cattle, sheep and goats, in that order, were ranked as the most important livestock species and were mainly kept for meat, cash and ceremonies, respectively. The non-descript cattle breed was the most common breed found in the smallholder areas. Most farmers preferred Nguni breed because of its adaptive attributes. In the second experiment, structured questionnaires were administered, between June and August 2006, to a total of 551 farmers from 10 communities of the Eastern Cape. There was a significant association (P<0.05) between the use of pregnancy diagnoses and community. About 87 and 77 % of the interviewed farmers did not respond on the extent of pregnancy and calving rates in their herds. A higher proportion of farmers from Hekele (51%) and from Upper Mnxe (45.3%) communities reported low number of bulls as a major constraint to cow reproductive performance. Body condition and ovarian activity were measured in the sweet and sour veld types. Body condition score of animals was measured from March iii 2007 until January 2008 and ovarian activity of cows was performed by a veterinarian through rectal palpation in June, August and October 2007 and January 2008. From March to July, there was a marked decline in body condition on both veld types. In the sweetveld, body condition improved from September until January, whereas in the sourveld the improvement in body condition started in October. The cows in both veld types conceived throughout the year. Most cows in the sweetveld were cycling in January and August (P<0.05) whereas in the sourveld there was no distinct period when the animals were cycling. Overall, there were no differences in the proportion of cows that were cycling between the sour and sweet veldts (P>0.05). There were more cows cycling in sourveld in October than in the sweetveld. Reproductive performance of cows in communal areas could, therefore, be determined by levels and quality of nutrition. Keywords: Participatory rural appraisals; Structured questionnaires; Farmer participation; Farmer perceptions; Body condition scoring; Ovarian activity; Pregnancy diagnoses.

The objective of this study was to determine time budgets, blood urea content, total protein and body condition score as adaptive responses to seasonal dynamics by breeding Nguni cows and heifers reared on a sweetveld. Twenty four clinically healthy Nguni cows and heifers were selected for the study. The animals were grouped according to their parities namely: Parity 1 (n=5), Parity 2 (n=5), Parity 3-6 (old cows) (n=9) and in-calf heifers (n=5). Two separate experiments were conducted and running concurrently. In the first experiment time budgets (time spent walking, grazing, lying down, drinking water and browsing) of the cows and heifers were monitored for two consecutive days once a month, while in the second experiment blood samples were collected from the coccygeal vein once a month during weighing. Body condition scores were also determined during weighing times. Heifers maintained significantly (p0.05) of both blood urea nitrogen (BUN) (7.5±0.39 mmol/l) and TP (80.7±1.19 g/l) in November. All the animals had the least BUN levels in January (1.93±0.18 mmol/l) while the highest total protein (TP) (82.1±1.08 g/l) was recorded in February. All the animals showed distinct (p0.05) in most behavioural attributes in the cool-wet season. Heifers spent significantly (p0.05) body condition scores, amount of time spent browsing and drinking water. On the other hand, heifers (14.7±1.50%) and first parity cows (13.9±1.50%) traded-off most (p<0,05) of their time walking during the cool-dry season. Similarly heifers spent more time browsing (6.4±0.62%) forage plants (p<0.05) than all the cows during the cool-wet season. Grazing (r = 0.17) and standing (r = -0.18) were correlated (p<0.05) with all the behavioural attributes measured in this environment. It was concluded that seasonal dynamics in trade-off behaviour through time budgeting, maintenance of BUN and TP were necessary for the Nguni cows and heifers to maintain their body condition scores within a narrow range throughout the four seasons.

No description available.

Institute for Rural Development / MRDV

MSCAGR (Animal Science) / Department of Animal Science / The Nguni is a transboundary indigenous Southern African cattle breed. The breed has distinct populations that are adapted to the different ecological zones of Southern Africa. Previous work on characterising the Nguni has been limited to within-country studies. Thus, the aim of the current study was to genetically characterise South African (SA) Nguni, Mozambican Nguni (Landim) and Swazi Nguni populations across Southern African region using a panel of 25 microsatellite markers, recommended by FAO and ISAG for genetic diversity studies. Genotypic data were generated from 90 unrelated autosomal DNA samples of the three cattle populations (SA Nguni n=30, Mozambican Nguni (Landim) n=30 and Swazi Nguni n=30) collected from government research stations and stud herds. Five South African beef cattle breeds’ DNA profiles were obtained from the ARC-DNA database and used as reference populations. A majority of the microsatellite markers were highly polymorphic across the studied populations. High genetic diversity was detected and expected heterozygosity varied from 71% (Landim) to 75% (SA Nguni) with a higher mean number of alleles (MNA) in the SA Nguni (7.52±0.42) compared to the Swazi Nguni (6.92±0.40) and Landim (7.16±0.43) populations. Observed heterozygosity (Ho) (0.597±0.046) compared to expected heterozygosity (He) (0.719±0.022) was lowest for the Swazi Nguni, confirming a relatively high level of inbreeding (FIS=0.158) in that population. An analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) revealed that 9.61% of the total variation occurred among populations, while 90.39% occurred within populations. Short genetic distance (29.9%) was observed between Landim and Swazi Nguni, with the SA Nguni (>50%) being the most genetically distant population. The distant relationship between SA Nguni and the other two Nguni cattle populations was further confirmed by neighbor-joining (NJ) tree, Principal Coordinates Analyses (PCoA) and Factorial Corresponding Analysis (FCA). The structure of the three Nguni cattle populations clustered independently, despite some evidence of admixture. Additionally, genetic differentiation and population structure within four Mozambican indigenous cattle populations were investigated using the same panel of microsatellite markers. The analysis of unrelated autosomal DNA was performed on 120 animals (Angone n=30, Bovine de Tete n=30, Landim n=30 and Namaacha Nguni n=30), which presented sufficient genetic diversity across all populations. Estimates of mean number of alleles, observed and expected heterozygosities were 6.920±0.20, 0.68±0.02 and 0.71±0.01, respectively. Genetic differentiation among the populations accounted for 8.02% of total genetic variability. Negative (-0.025±0.029) to low positive (0.073±0.050) levels of inbreeding were observed within the four populations. The genetic distance, NJ tree, PCoA and FCA revealed a close relationship between Bovine de Tete and Landim as opposed to Angone and Namaacha Nguni. STRUCTURE analysis assigned the four Mozambican populations independently; however Bovine de Tete and Landim showed relatively higher levels of admixture with each other than Angone and Namaacha Nguni. It can be concluded that SA Nguni, Landim and Swazi Nguni populations accomplish high genetic diversity and they are genetically distant; however, the two latter populations are closely related. These results present useful information / NRF