Thaba Goats Business Plan — Kid Mortality: The Industry’s Named Constraint
Why kid mortality is the single biggest determinant of goat enterprise profitability, the published benchmarks, and the controls this plan applies.
Kid Mortality: The Industry's Named Constraint
Jump to section
- Overview & contents
- i. Important Notice
- 1. Executive Summary
- 2. The South African Goat Market
- 3. Why the Informal Market Matters More Than the Abattoir
- 4. Seasonality
- 5. SWOT and Competitive Position
- 6. The Five-Stage Roadmap and Gates
- 7. The Funding Ladder
- 8. Herd and Reproduction
- 9. Kid Mortality: The Industry's Named Constraint
- 10. Grazing, Land and Water
- 11. Animal Health
- 12. Route to Market
- 13. People and Operations
- 14. Regulation and Compliance
- 15. Unit Economics
- 16. Capital Expenditure
- 17. Financial Projections
- 18. Break-Even and Sensitivity
- 19. Risk Management
- 20. Implementation Timeline
- 21. Returns and Net Asset Value
- 22. Key Performance Indicators
- 23. Key Assumptions
- 24. Conclusion
- A. Appendix A: Consolidated Financial Summary
- B. Appendix B: Stage Capital Schedules
- C. Appendix C: Debt Schedules
- D. Appendix D: Risk Register
- E. Appendix E: Funding Application Checklist
- F. Appendix F: Glossary
- 9.1 What kills kids, and what each costs
- 9.2 The kidding protocol
The National Agricultural Marketing Council identifies high kid mortality and slow growth as the major constraints on South African goat production. This section treats it as the primary technical objective of the enterprise, because it is the highest-return intervention available and it costs almost nothing but attention.
|
Year 1 |
Year 2 |
Year 3 |
Year 4 |
Year 5 |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Kid survival to weaning |
82% |
85% |
87% |
89% |
91% |
|
Stage gate requirement |
82% |
85% |
87% |
89% |
91% |
|
Doe mortality |
6.0% |
5.5% |
5.0% |
4.5% |
4.0% |
|
Kids weaned |
69 |
100 |
176 |
300 |
485 |
|
Kids lost at plan survival |
15 |
18 |
26 |
37 |
48 |
9.1 What kills kids, and what each costs
|
Cause |
Share of kid losses |
Intervention |
Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Starvation and mismothering in the first 72 hours |
Roughly 40% |
Kidding pens, supervision through the kidding window, colostrum management |
Labour and attention; the pens are already in the Stage 1 capital |
|
Internal parasites, principally wireworm |
Roughly 20% |
Strategic dosing programme timed to the rainy season; faecal egg counts |
Dosing is in the direct cost line at R259 per goat sold |
|
Predation |
Roughly 15% |
Night kraaling, perimeter integrity, herding presence |
Kraal and fencing are in the Stage 1 capital |
|
Cold and exposure |
Roughly 10% |
Shelter, kidding timed away from the coldest weeks |
Shelter is in the Stage 1 and Stage 2 capital |
|
Disease, principally enterotoxaemia and pulpy kidney |
Roughly 10% |
Vaccination programme; the single cheapest intervention on this list |
Vaccine cost, in the veterinary line |
|
Other and unknown |
Roughly 5% |
Recording, so that the unknown becomes known |
Nothing but discipline |
9.2 The kidding protocol
- Does are moved to kidding pens seven to ten days before expected kidding and are checked at least three times daily through the window.
- Every kid is confirmed to have taken colostrum within six hours; a kid that has not is a kid that will probably die.
- Kidding is timed away from the coldest weeks and away from the peak of the parasite season, which means mating is planned rather than left to the buck.
- Every birth, every death and every cause is recorded on the day it happens. A cause recorded as ‘unknown’ more than twice in a season is a supervision failure, not a mystery.
- Strategic dosing is timed to the rainy season rather than to the calendar, and is verified by faecal egg counts rather than by assumption.