Image from website:http://www.rainbowchickens.co.za/about_company.aspx
This is one of the biggest chicken producers in South Africa. All the chains for chicken processing are managed in this enterprise. They have their farms located throughout the country.
The whole process begins with the keeping of the birds’ grandparents. In the place where they are kept there are also chicks that are imported. They are using only a pure genetic Cobb breed in their farms. After 22 weeks of age, birds are transferred to the laying house where they produce eggs for the next 38-40 weeks. Eggs are taken to the hatcheries where they are put onto setter trolleys just before they are sorted and graded. Hatching eggs are then set to the machines and allowed to hatch for a period of 21 days. Afterwards, in the growing farms, a special diet is provided with the proper installation put in place to obtain chickens ready in 38 days with a weight of 1, 8 kg.
The whole process begins with the keeping of the birds’ grandparents. In the place where they are kept there are also chicks that are imported. They are using only a pure genetic Cobb breed in their farms. After 22 weeks of age, birds are transferred to the laying house where they produce eggs for the next 38-40 weeks. Eggs are taken to the hatcheries where they are put onto setter trolleys just before they are sorted and graded. Hatching eggs are then set to the machines and allowed to hatch for a period of 21 days. Afterwards, in the growing farms, a special diet is provided with the proper installation put in place to obtain chickens ready in 38 days with a weight of 1, 8 kg.
In the processing plant, that is where chickens are slaughtered. They try by all means to apply animal welfare principles throughout the process. The house in which they slaughter chickens is well ventilated to provide a suitable environment for chickens to be calm just before they are slaughtered. They slaughter chickens with the use of an electric stunner and cut the head off after. On average, they slaughter about 200 000 chickens per day.
The Rainbow enterprise mostly sells fresh and frozen chicken meat products. They use quality machines to do functions like portion freezer, spin and air chillier; also for packing they use mechanical and manual material. Their target market includes supermarkets such as Spar, Pick ‘n Pay, and also provide chicken to the KFC restaurants.
Rainbow is an enterprise that has an important impact in South African society, mostly by providing job opportunities and quality and safe chicken meat and eggs required for human consumption. Besides, they give support to rural communities with founding education programs.
I had an opportunity to attend the Symposium entitled “Understanding Communal Animal Agriculture” which was conducted by Developing Animal Agriculture Interest Group joint of South African Society of Animal Science Stands (SASAS). The Symposium took place in Drakensburg.
In this conference I could appreciate the performance of professionals in areas such as agriculture, livestock management, agroforesty, animal sciences, developer researchers and NGO leaderships.
The aim of the symposium was to share ideas about how can a project be made successful in rural areas. Because the rural communities encounter several problems related with bad management of cattle, overgrazing, lack of agricultural awareness issues, low quality of soils, organization of community lands while on the other hand they have to carry on with the Zulu culture.
A number of important points in communal agreement were the necessity of strengthened the entrepreneurial skills like a motivation to keep the project running, establish a goal and at the end the community can work by their own account in a progressive way. In addition, they concord with the witness that the schools have, because the academic program do not include the entrepreneur motivation, build up of creativity and the fieldwork in vegetables school gardens are assigned like a punishment for bad behaviour. For that reason, the kids developed a dislike to agriculture and they do not learn in a proper way for them to be able to apply all the necessary information in the near future. The influence of HIV-Aids was one of the common points under a spotlight, because the influence that this epidemic has in agriculture is of great concern. This disease militates against food security and literacy in a community with high index of HIV.
Some research projects are implementing in the farms from rural areas with the endeavour of looking for solutions at the same time teach the farmers. For example, the project in Ladysmith from which I attended (see Week 3). Other kind of research is based on increasing the knowledge of the areas, for example see the grazing potential of the communal areas.
Another challenge is to try and understand the Zulu culture. Mostly in rural areas the people tend to be very strict about how to follow the customs. For instance, if a man is going to get married he must pay Lobola. The Lobola is then paid to the bride’s family; it is normally compensated with cattle. In addition, the Zulu’s believe mostly in the ancestors and for that reason they can surrender the entire domestic animals to attribute for them.
Another challenge is to try and understand the Zulu culture. Mostly in rural areas the people tend to be very strict about how to follow the customs. For instance, if a man is going to get married he must pay Lobola. The Lobola is then paid to the bride’s family; it is normally compensated with cattle. In addition, the Zulu’s believe mostly in the ancestors and for that reason they can surrender the entire domestic animals to attribute for them.
The role of woman in this society is also different, customs like Umemulo which is a ceremony that the family do to present to the community that the daughter is a women and they sacrifice cattle to the presentation. If the woman is married she can get into the Kraal (place where goats and other animals sleep), also any woman can go to the dipping tanks (place where animals are disinfected). Those customs tend to limit animal management and leads to the reduction of the heard.
The symposium concluded with the visit to a dairy farm. We could appreciate the conditions of the producer. He disposes of enough land to cultivate and maintain the herd. Also he received the dairy machines as a donation and has the infrastructure to use it. However, his herd appeared dead hungry. The farmer has one tractor, which is not working, for that reason he cannot plant maize. The pipe for transporting water to the dairy place was broken therefore the dairy work was then done manually. He used beans straws like feed, but he put it in the grass and lost the taste for the cows to eat.
The situation is controversial. How can the professionals help him if he does not show interest about these issues? The impression that came to me was that he was waiting for somebody to do things for him...
Also on the visit we could see an agroforestry project. It was a parcel with grass and trees and cultivated pastures using a simple plan of irrigation. The project is successful, the grass and the trees are growing very fine. But if a farmer wants to adapted he must spend money in the pump and the pasture and that is when he is going to be recompensed with the output but sometimes they do not take that as important and thus end up having nothing.
I also attended a Garden and Leisure Show. It took place in Pietermaritzburg in the Royal Agricultural Show Grounds. In there you could find a lot of different displays with nurseries of the zone, garden shops, restaurants and demonstrated stands like University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Most of the nurseries and displays are trying to promote the use of indigenous plants to stop the spread of alien plants, because they have an adverse impact in South African society. Indigenous plants like Pincushion, Proteias, Aloes, Everlasting, Strelitzia and Clivias are the frequent offers for gardening.
Most of the nurseries and displays are trying to promote the use of indigenous plants to stop the spread of alien plants, because they have an adverse impact in South African society. Indigenous plants like Pincushion, Proteias, Aloes, Everlasting, Strelitzia and Clivias are the frequent offers for gardening.
In the UKZN stand they displayed the mayors that the University offer related with biology and agriculture. Also in the display you could find information about the University and tips about how to do gardening properly.
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