Why Nguni cattle?
History of Ngunis
Patterns and names
Nguni skin products
It is the Nguni's resistance to parasites and disease
that is most appealing to farmers and is currently the subject pf research.
It seems that Nguni cattle possess antibodies that cause the animal to itch
when a tick bites, the resultant scratching removing the parasite.
Also, it has recently been found that remaining ticks take longer to fully
engorge and therefore may not reach egg-laying stage. Nguni cattle are
also largely resistant to redwater, hartwater and gallsickness. Most
Nguni breeders do not dip their cattle in order to retain the resistance.
For many years, after
the beginning of the 20th Century and well into the 1980s, Nguni cattle
were persecuted almost as much as their black owners. Racist attitudes
carried over onto the livestock and Nguni cattle were thought of as
inferior to the "purer" European breeds. The wide variety of colour, horn
size and shape and even conformation of the animal flew in the face of
Eurocentric ideals of breed conformity and racial purity.
Recent work has shown
that Nguni cattle have the following advantages, they:
relatively long-lived with a long calf-bearing life
very short Inter-Calving Period (even under sub-optimal conditions)
resistant to ticks and tick-borne diseases
even and calm temperament
well and are good parents
sexually mature early
able to thrive on low quality grazing
Traits and uses
smaller in stature than many European breed the Nguni is still useful as a
beef producer because of its efficiency at utilising food to produce bulk.
Nguni cattle will both graze and browse and instinctively identify the
most nutritious resources available. Furthermore, because of this
efficiency, the impact of Ngunis on vegetation is less then that of some
of the larger breeds. It has been found that stocking rates with
Ngunis can be up to twice that of European breeds.
Why so tough?
Nguni cattle were developed by the ancestors of the
Khoisan speaking people and later the Nguni-speaking people that migrated
down from east-central Africa 1000's of years ago. The harsh climatic
conditions, presence of disease and deliberate selective breeding have
ensured that only the strongest have survived to pass on their genes.