Grasscutter Farming Manual Pdf
Grasscutter farming can be quite profitable, but it demands good prepara-tion, care and commitment. 1.1 The scope and focus of this guide This Agrodok provides up-to-date information on grasscutter farming to benefit the informed farmer and extension and rural development officers. Grasscutter Farming A Manual For Beginners Pdf Holistic and sustainable farming practices form the foundation of all Jovana Integrated Farm's The company is a grasscutter company of choice in Nigeria. In grass-cutter with the aim of providing adequate information that will be of rearing grasscutter as they recorded lesser deaths of the.
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How To Start Grasscutter Farming In Nigeria (Complete Guide) Grasscutter is one of the most desirable meat in Nigeria. You can rear it from home and make millions. Find out how to start Grasscutter farming in Nigeria. Goat Farming Business Plan For Beginners A suitable and effective business plan is a must for starting any business. FEASIBILITY STUDY ON GRASS CUTTER FARMING: ( 10 families. (grasscutter) feed mainly on grasses that can be found in all parts of Nigeria. Rabbit Housing Manual.
Grasscutter farming in Nigeria Image Source: www.dailytrust.com.ng
The practise of Grasscutter farming has grown steadily in West Africa over the past couple of years. These rodents also known as “The Cane Rat” or “bush meat”, generally live by the meadows, clearings, muddy territories, reed-beds, and river banks in sub-saharan Africa, and can grow to lengths of almost 2 ft (0.61 m) and weigh a little less than 19 lb (8.6 kg).
With a large market demand for these rodents in countries domiciled in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, the market potential drives farmers with the technical know-how, to set up and run large grasscutter farms in their localities or on sites acquired at specific locations. Growing these grasscutter farms helps the farmers build a sustainable agribusiness in a very unsaturated agricultural category.
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What Is Grasscutter Farming About?
Grasscutter farming is the rearing of grasscutters both for domestic and commercial use. Originally, grasscutters were not grown on farmlands. They were usually hunted down, caught, and then sold to buyers. But the inherent discomfort in hunting these rodents gave rise to the practice of rearing grasscutters.
Business Opportunities In Grasscutter Farming Around The World
With about 80,000 tons of grasscutter meat consumed annually in Nigeria, only 0.2 % of these lot are domesticated grasscutters. Here are two core opportunities in grasscutter farming:
1). Source Of Meat:
Grasscutters are a great source of meat for many households in sub-saharan Africa. The nutritious and scarce nature of their meats doesn’t just serve as a source of protein to compliment Africa’s popular starch dinners, but also makes people place high values on them, thus raising their costs in the market.
Since grasscutter meats are not regular market commodities that can be spotted easily, their scarcity drives their prices high; especially in Latin America and Asia, where grasscutter meat if available, are highly favoured over most types of meats, due to its high protein, low fat, and low cholesterol content.
This makes the market demand for the grasscutter meats utimately far exceed its supply.
2). Medical Purposes:
Grasscutters have medicinal advantages, because of their pancreas which has a high concentration of insulin used in the treatment of diabetes. This major advantage makes them a key piece of the manufacturing process some pharmaceutical companies use in making diabetes drugs.
The consumption of grasscutter meat also has great health benefits for hypertensive patients.
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Benefits Of Grasscutter Farming
1). Source Of Income And Employment.
2). Great Source Of Protein.
3). Cheaper to run than poultry, fish, or pig farming.
4). Medicinal Uses.
5). Feeding Them Is Extremely Cheap (can be grass only).
6). Can be reared at home.
7). They sell for great prices.
8). More Demand Than Available Supply.
9). They Can Be Pets.
The Suitable Species For Grasscutter Farming
1). Thryonomys Swinderianus (T.S):
The Thryonomys Swinderianus, also called the Greater Cane Rat, are the most popular types of grasscutters reared in West Africa, especially Nigeria and Ghana. They are usually large and weigh an average of 8.6kg per animal. These grasscutters are of two strains. The smaller strains are found in the forest zone, while the largerer strains are usually found in the savannah zones and are lighter in colour.
They live in small groups led by a male, make nests from grasses or burrow underground, are nocturnal, and can live for more than four years. They belong to a small family of the African hystricognath rodents.
2). Thryonomys Gregorianus (T.G.):
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The Thryonomys Gregorianus, also known as the Lesser Cane Rat, are a species of rodents in the family Thryonomyidae. These grasscutters are smaller than the Thryonomys Swinderianus, and usually weigh about 7.5 kg. They are mostly found and reared in Central and East African countries like Cameroon, Chad, Congo, and the likes.
These grasscutters usually have bristle-like coarse hair that lies flat against their body. They have small ears almost hidden in their furs, long feet with functioning toes, strong claws, and bare palms. Their backs and sides are usually yellowish or greyish-white, and their tails have few bristles, scales, is brown above, and white below.
Their males are mostly larger than their females.
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How To Setup Your Grasscutter Farm
1). Grasscutter Cage Or Pen:
The grasscutter pen or house has to be built to be adequately spacious. In setting it up, you must separate the region they sleep from the region they carry out any other form of activity. This is especially important because grasscutters hate to sleep where they feed.
When placing grasscutters in their pens, you should ensure that each colony would be about 1 male to 4 to 6 females. Two fully grown males cannot live together, and would fight till one is dead. But by placing a colony of 1 male to about 4 females in a cage, you can be assured that they’d live peacefully and have a rich reproduction rate.
In constructing your grasscutter cages, ensure it adheres to a close dimension of 180cm in length, 60cm in width, and 45cm in height. They should all contain separate grasscutter colonies, and be built in such a way that the temperature remains stable at all times. The cage should also keep the colonies secure from potential pests like snakes, soldier ants, and humans. You can ensure ants have no access by pouring engine oils around their pens, and surrounding areas; especially during the rainy season.
2). Choosing A Breed:
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In choosing the grasscutter breed you want to rear, it’s important you select one that’s most demanded in your country, or that is accepted in the regions you intend to ship out to. The Thryonomys Swinderianus for instance are most popular in West Africa, while the Thryonomys Gregorianus are most popular in Central and East Africa.
Once you’ve determined what breed you intend to rear, you can purchase 4 healthy females and 1 large and healthy male for a start to make one colony. The healthy state of your grasscutters is crucial to aid rapid reproduction. Since fertility is the most important thing in rearing animals, make sure you can purchase the most healthy grasscutters you can find.
If you’re working with a very large budget, you can purchase a lot of colonies to start-off with.
3). Feeding The Grasscutters:
Feeding your grasscutters is a lot cheaper than any other farm animal. Since they’re herbivorous animals, the bulk of their diet lies majorly on grass. The most common grasses they’re fed with are Napier grass or Elephant grass. They could also be fed Congo grass, Guinea grass, groundnut, maize, cassava, sweet potato, rice, legumes, plantain, paw paw, pineapple, roots of oil & coconut palms, and most importantly, sugar cane.
By constantly feeding your grasscutters with rich (healthy) meals at all intervals, they can gain weight quickly and reach market size within a short time.
The cane rats usually prefer to drink liquid with artificial tastes, e.g palm wine (which is largely why they destroy oil palm plantations). In a privately grown setting, they can be fed water that has little additives in it.
For grasscutters in the weaning stage, they can stay with their mothers between four to eight weeks. But when they’re in the wild or moving together as a family, they can all be with their mothers for up to four months. By the time they’re about seven to eight months old, they can be separated from their mothers and placed with the mature opposite sex, for mating to occur.
The male grasscutters reach their mating stage at the age of seven months, while the females reaching their mating stage when they’re about eight months old. The mating period should last for 140 days, and should be restarted with different males if after 160 days, the female grasscutters show no signs of pregnancy.
Grasscutters are generally great for rearing because of their fast reproduction rate which begins about seven months after birth, and can be about 4 to 10 babies per reproduction cycle, which usually happens two times in a year. With their market price going for as high as 7,000 Naira for each, 10 females could give birth to 200 grasscutters in a year, which would amount to about ₦1,400,000.
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A Short Feasibility Study On Grasscutter Farming
Initial Start-up Capital (Naira Value)
1 Colony = 5 grasscutters (1 male & 4 females) = ₦55,000
5 Colonies = 25 grasscutters = ₦275,000
Cage/Housing = ₦80,000 for 5 colonies
Feeding Cost = ₦40,000 per year
TOTAL = ₦395,000
Expected Income (Naira Value)
1 female gives birth to an average of 4 to 10 grasscutters within 6 months.
5 females will give you an average of 20 to 50 grasscutters within 6 months.
20 grasscutters x 5 colonies = 100 grasscutters within 6 months.
In 1 year, you will be expecting at least 200 grasscutters.
The grasscutters weigh between 6 to 10kg at maturity.
Assuming you sell each for ₦7,000;
₦7,000 x 200 = ₦1,400, 000.
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Challenges Of Grasscutter Farming
The major challenges of grasscutter are the technicalities involved in running a grasscutter farm and also the danger of pests and diseases.
Conclusion
Grasscutter farming is one of the often overlooked agribusinesses that turn in high revenues. With only about o.2% grown domestically out of about 80,000 tonnes of grasscutters consumed yearly in Nigeria, the opportunities for scale exceeds most farmers’ expectations.
By the inevitable crackers. If you’re unsure of an agribusiness to venture into, and you want something odourless, less expensive to run, and still highly profitable, grasscutter farming is a great bet for you.
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What are your thoughts on this article about grasscutter farming in Nigeria? Let me know by leaving a comment below.
Grasscutter farming is gaining popularity in Africa for good reasons. Greater Cane Rat popularly known as Grasscutter belongs to the rodent family and is very closely related to the porcupine, almost look alike except that porcupine is bigger. The spiny fur on the back and rounded nose distinguish Grasscutter from true rats. It reaches a length of about 720 mm when fully matured. Grasscutter farming can make you at least N3million per year if you take it serious.
So, how do you start Grasscutter farming in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa or any part of west Africa where this animal is most fond of? This article will address that.
Grasscutter is one of the animal that is extremely suitable for commercial rearing. If you are in the village and still complaining about money, you need to be brought out to the village square and be given 24 strokes of cane on a hot afternoon. Why? Because you’ve been allowing opportunities to pass you by all these years!
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After reading this article, you need between 6 – 12 months to make at least one million naira in this business. If not, then something is wrong with you somewhere. So, let’s get down to business and see how Grasscutter farming works
Grasscutter farming is highly profitable, more profitable than you imagined. The meat is widely consumed allover the West Africa region and beyond, making it one of the top 10 animals whose meat is in highest demand in the market. A market ready Grasscutter is sold between N4,000 to N5,500. Five hundred Grasscuters in a year could earn you between N2 Million to N2.75 Million.
The animal reproduces very quickly and in good numbers. A fully grown female Grasscutter after gestation, carries the pregnancy for 140 – 150 days and deliver about twice a year. Each pregnancy produces average of four to seven young ones. Sometimes up to ten, that means one female Grasscutter could produce 8 – 20 other Grasscutters in a year
It grows big and very fast too. Grasscutter is one of the biggest rodent in Africa. A fully mature female or male that is ready for market weighs between 3.5kg for the female and 4.5kg for the male. While measuring 45cm to 60cm in body length. The standing height is between 25 to 30cm. The body size of a fully grown male is about the size of a nine inches block.
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A good number of Grasscutter is consumed yearly but most of them still comes from the wild through hunters who goes into the bush to hunt for them but usually not easy to catch, making the animal meat very scarce in the market.
Getting Started In Grasscutter Farming
Colony – Grasscutter lives in colony, two mature male doesn’t live together. Therefore, start with a male and few females together. A colony should consists of one male and three to four females. Your capacity determine how many colony you wants to start with. A small farmer may start with one or two colony, with the arrangement of one male and 3 females in each colony.
Breeding – Grasscutter is kept 100% for the meat, it has to grow well and healthy in other to be profitable. To achieve this, a new farmer must lay emphasis on the choice of breeding stock. Each colony must have a very health male. The male is the engine of reproduction, a healthy male makes a healthy stock. While selecting the male, pay attention on the well being, good weight gain in male animals is a very important factors that determine how healthy it is.
In any case, both the male and female stock you are selecting for breeding purpose must be healthy. While a healthy, strong, agile male animal should be selected for breeding programs, if the female is not genetically healthy too, it will also affect the breeding stocks. To ensure that you achieve the best possible result, both has to be healthy.
Grasscutter Pen – Grasscutter don’t like sleeping where they eat! If you are providing them house you must put this factor into consideration – either cage or house, you must provide steeping place and dinning and playing place.
They can be breed either in a properly build cages or in a house specially designed for them. Grasscutter is sensitive to good habitat, for a colony (1 male and 3 females) the dimension of the cage should be 180cm in length, 60cm in width and 45cm in height. Build your cage that way, separate for each colony.
Grasscutter Cage Picture
If you are using walled pen or house, make sure you build it in such way that the place they eat must be separate from where they sleep. Also the production building must be designed to protect the animals from excess temperature and humidity.
SEE ALSO: How To Build Low Cost Poultry Pen For Small Scale Farmers
The biggest enemies for Grasscutter are Snakes and Soldier Ants.Make sure their house are built is a safe place and you must also be wary of human thieves. To protect them from the invasion of soldier ants, you may pour black engine oil around their houses, especially at night during raining season mostly.
The floor should be overlay with dry soft grasses to protect their feet from being hurt and to provide them soft cushy play ground condition.
Feeding The Grasscutters
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Grasscutter is a herbivorous animals meaning their source of food is basically from the bush, that’s why they are more comfortable in the bush where their foods could easily be found. Their major food is Elephant or Napier grass. They also love Sugar cane and most farmers use sugar cane mainly for their feeding, Guinea grass, Gamba grass, Congo grass.
According to experience farmers, Hygiene and good feeding are the most important factors for successful, profitably Grasscutter farming. You can also fatten the male with broiler’s finisher or broiler starter’s feed to help attain market weight within short period of time.
SEE ALSO: How To Start Animal Feeds Production Business
The animal also like Gliricidia sepium, herbaceous legumes like Stylo (Stylosanthes gracilis) and Pueraria phaseoloides. The root and pitch of oil and coconut palms, bark of the anacardium and fruits such as half ripen pawpaw, plantain, pineapple, mango etc are their delight. Food crops such as groundnut, rice, maize, grain legume, tubers like cassava, sweet potato etc also make part of their food, stressed the grasscutter farmer.
The farmer also stated that grasscutter feed on palm wine and that is why they destroy oil palm plantation. They take their water mostly from the field and go to the river during the dry season only. But when domesticated, you can give them water by adding some attractant to it. Cane rate it should be noted does not dig a hole and cannot climb a tree either, he further stressed.
They can also be fed with formulated concentrates like pellet as well as other processing by-products like wheat bran, corn bran, groundnut, soya, oilseed, cotton seed cakes, brewer yeast, grain legume pods, brewers’ grains, maize shucks and cobs, brewer’s yeast etc as feed supplements.
Grasscutter don’t like cold environment. The rooms or cages where you keep them must neither be too cold nor too hot. Environment that is suitable for human is considered suitable for Grasscutters.
Grasscutter Farming Manual Pdf Download
Weaning time – With good, adequate feeding, the grasscutter kids can be weaned between four to eight weeks. But as a family, they can be with the mother for four months. The kids can be separated from the mother between five to seven months and place with a male to mate with them.
The weaned animals can be mated at the age of between seven to eight months from birth. Indefinite mating is expected to have taken place when the weaned male Grasscutter is seven months old and the female is eight months. The indefinite mating period is 140days. But if after 160 days of separation from the male, there is still no sign of pregnancy , then it should be taken back to the male for proper mating. Usually there should also be an extra male that can serve the same purpose.
The Market For Grasscutter
Grasscutter Farming Manual Pdf
The market like I stated earlier is very big. Grasscutter meat or Bush meat is probably the most desirable animal meet in the market. Everyone loves it and it sells very fast. Big restaurants uses it to prepare high priced delicacies. Full meat of a mature Grasscutter goes for N4,500 in the market and the market women who trade on it are always in demand of it.
SEE ALSO: How To Develop Marketing Strategy For Your Business
Most people in the city couldn’t buy the meat because it’s very scarce, so no amount of Grasscutter you produced that can’t be sold within days. It will take combined efforts of thousands of farmers to fill the need for bush meat in the market in Africa right now.
Grasscutter is a fast reproducing animal and starts mating with 7 months after birth. It gives birth twice yearly and produce 4-7 at a time. That means, if you have 100 females that gives birth twice in a year, you would be having 900 to 1,500 in your farm within just a year! Such number will bring you nothing less than N5 Million when they are matured for marketing.
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