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An economic analysis of an intensive sheep production system on cultivated pastures in South Africa, incorporating creep feeding- and accelerated breeding practices

The South African sheep industry has experienced an increase in the price of meat and wool over the past several years. This has led to an interest in intensification of sheep production off planted pastures. Due to this phenomenon an economic viability study was done on the intensification of sheep production on cultivated pastures under irrigation. When intensifying sheep production, certain management practices need to be incorporated in order to enhance the output obtained per hectare and to overcome the higher input cost of production. Management practices that could be included are creep feeding, accelerated breeding and feedlotting of lambs after weaning. In order to determine the economic viability of such a system, certain production parameters need to be obtained for producing sheep intensively from cultivated pastures. Three studies were conducted to obtain the required production parameters; these were then followed by an economic evaluation incorporating the parameters obtained from the studies. All the studies were conducted at Kromme Rhee and Langgewens, two research farms of the Department of Agriculture in the Western Cape.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nmmu/vital:10737
Date January 2013
CreatorsTerblanche, Stefan
PublisherNelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Faculty of Science
Source SetsSouth African National ETD Portal
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis, Masters, MTech
Formatxi, 138 leaves, pdf
RightsNelson Mandela Metropolitan University

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