Mountain people 'grow' straw for buffaloes and cows during rainy days

(Baonghean.vn) - To proactively provide food for cattle during the rainy season, mountain people have learned how to "grow" straw.

Mr. Vi Van Binh of Khe Ran village, Bong Khe commune is taking care of his buffalo herd during the rainy and stormy days. Photo: Ba Hau

On normal days, people in Khe Ran village, Bong Khe commune graze buffalo and cows 1-2 kilometers from their homes. During these rainy and flood days, the buffalo and cows have been kept at home and fed with spare food such as straw, elephant grass, bananas, etc.

Mr. Vi Van Binh in Khe Ran village said: “My family raises 4 buffaloes. Normally, the buffaloes have to graze 1-2 kilometers away from home. These days, the buffaloes are kept at home. For farmers like us, the buffalo is a big asset of the family, so protecting it is like protecting human children. The buffaloes are kept at home, but there is also a reserve food source to feed them these days, unlike before.”

Unlike before, people now plant a lot of elephant grass to feed buffalo and cows on rainy days. Photo: Minh Hanh

Ms. Lo Thi Mui, also from Khe Ran village, said: "In the past, I did not know how to use straw to feed the buffaloes like I do now. The buffaloes were let out to graze on the mountains, so they often got cold, hungry, and couldn't stand it and died. Thanks to the guidance from the cadres who came to my house, I built a solid barn, then threshed rice and used straw as food for the buffaloes. Now that there is an abundance of dry straw during this rainy season, I don't have to worry about the buffaloes starving anymore."

Not only that, Ms. Mui is also an active member in guiding the surrounding farmers to follow suit. Therefore, in Khe Ran village, every household that raises buffalo and cows has a large straw tree to use as animal feed.

Mr. Luong Van Nam - Vice Chairman of Bong Khe Commune People's Committee said: In the past, people often raised livestock in a free-range manner all year round, kept in roofless pens, and relied on natural grass growing in the forests and hills for food. Every rainy and cold season, buffaloes and cows in the commune more or less died.

Straw is now being stored by people in Con Cuong district as a food source for buffalo and cows during the rainy season. Photo: Ba Hau

Thanks to the model of collecting straw and storing it as a source of food for livestock during the rainy season, which has been implemented for 5 years now, the situation of buffaloes and cows starving to death during the rainy season has been limited. At first, people did not listen, but thanks to the district women's cadres coordinating with the commune government and mass organizations to mobilize and explain, people have understood the meaning of storing food sources in livestock farming. Thanks to that, livestock farming households in the commune have now proactively stored dry straw to create a source of food for buffaloes and cows.

Not only in Bong Khe commune, the model has also been deployed in most of the 13 communes and towns in Con Cuong district. According to statistics from the Farmers' Association of Con Cuong district, up to now, nearly 75% of buffalo and cow raising households in the district have "planted" straw, some families have stored 2-3 straws. Currently, the total herd of cattle in Con Cuong district is 35,000, of which 18,000 are buffalo and 17,000 are cows./.

Ba Hau - Minh Hanh