Efficacy of Shadenet to control Algae

Some of you had mailed me regarding the efficacy of the Shadenet over SST. Algae formation was a major problem we were experiencing in our tank, especially during the peak of summer. The situation became quite critical last year - Pictures before shadenet

Using some local ingenuity, we started working towards a potential solution that could at least control the problem, if not eliminate it - Shadenet over SST

It has been about 5 months and we are happy to note that we have not had the need to clean the tank yet. Algae build up has started in the last few weeks but is greatly reduced. Earlier, we had to clean the tank almost every 4-6 weeks during the hot months.

In conclusion, Shadenet was indeed useful in mitigating algae to a large extent. Only one word of caution - with 1600 sq ft of Shadenet material resting on metal wires, it does get quite heavy (especially after a rain or so). Ensure there is good support on the sides and proper reinforcement is available to avoid falling of metal pillars.

Tellachery goats for sale!

We are happy to announce that we completed 1 year of goat ops last week. It has been an incredible journey so far, with a lot of lessons learned along the way.  In the next few weeks, we will elaborate more on our learnings with commentary on practice vs theory of goat operations.

In the meanwhile, we have about 40 Tellacherry goats, ranging from 6 months to 1.5 years for sale. Kindly contact us if you are setting up a new farm or have a requirement for live goat. We are giving great pedigree animals, with documented vaccinations, well fed and maintained.

Call 91 94450 76595

Cowpea as foodder!

Our goat herd has been steadily growing over the last one year. There have been more than 80 births and the kids are growing at a steady rate. Initially, we used concentrate comprising of Maize powder, daal, groundnut cake for accelerated growth. However, often the mix was adulterated with mud, salt etc. The feed was not only inferior in quality but also expensive.

So in the last few months we stopped using concentrate and augmented our fodder acreage. Currently, we give a mix of CO4, sorgum, maize, agathi, subabul (and mango leaves during pruning). The latest addition has been Cowpea. This grows well under rain fed condition.

Interestingly, cowpea has a lot of health advantages ranging from controlling blood pressure to having anti-aging properties. Of course, this does not apply to the goats since we are harvesting leaves and not seeds. You should be careful not feeding leaves that have been infected with leaf eating pests. We noticed that often goats experienced a rather nasty round of dysentery after feeding on infected leaves.