Farmers in Nghe An installed a large sound system for cows to listen to music all day long.

The "fattening" cow farming model of Mr. Tran Ngoc Bay's family in Ngoc Son commune, Quynh Luu district. Photo: Viet Hung

Taking advantage of his family's vacant land, in early 2018, Mr. Tran Ngoc Bay started building a barn to raise "fattened" cows. After 2 months of construction, the livestock area was completed with a design of 30 barns, each barn is 180 m wide.²During this time, he invested in buying a feed grinder, electronic scales, installing an electric fan system, cameras... to serve livestock farming; The total investment cost for building barns was about 300 million VND.

When the model was completed and fully equipped, Mr. Bay went to mountainous communes such as Tan Thang and Quynh Thang to buy lean cows that could grow quickly and raise them at home to "fatten up".

Mr. Bay said that the cows bought from households are all very thin, about 2 years old on average. If they are female cows, the purchase price is about 14 - 15 million VND/cow; and if they are male cows, the purchase price is higher, from 20 - 30 million VND/cow. When purchased, these cows will be weighed for monitoring and after about 45 days of "fattening", their weight will increase significantly.

"The skinny cows we buy and raise need special care to grow quickly. In addition to feeding them milk grass and straw, the family has supplemented them with starchy microorganisms to provide nutrients for the cows to grow. If there is a lack of starch, even if the cows eat grass or straw, it will be difficult to gain weight," Mr. Bay shared.

Currently, Mr. Bay's barn always maintains 20 - 30 cows. Photo: Viet Hung

After focusing on caring for and fattening the herd, Mr. Bay's family sold the first batch of cows to slaughterhouses. On average, he earned a profit of about 2.5 - 3 million VND/cow after 45 days of raising. With the rotational method of raising, every day Mr. Bay's family had 1 - 2 cows to supply to slaughterhouses; after deducting expenses, his family earned a profit of over 50 million VND/month.

Currently, Mr. Bay is focusing on expanding the herd. In addition, he also cooperates with local households to focus on raising cattle to purchase and solve output for people.

According to Mr. Bay, linking with households to focus on raising cows will help people have more income. After only about 1.5 - 2 years of raising, people can sell and earn about 20 million VND/cow. His family also slaughters and distributes clean food to the provinces. More importantly, linking with households to raise cattle is to limit the size of the family's barn, not to develop large herds, causing environmental impacts.

Large speakers are placed on the cage. Photo: Viet Hung

More specifically, to help the cows grow quickly, Mr. Bay recently installed two large speakers in the barn so the cows can eat and listen to music at the same time.

Through his sharing, after visiting dairy farms in some places, he saw that they also let the cows listen to music, so after the visit, he immediately applied it to his family's cows. Letting the cows listen to music creates a habit for them, whenever there is music, they focus on eating, inspiring the cows to gain weight quickly.

Mr. Ho Van Lap - Chairman of Ngoc Son Commune People's Committee said: The model of fattening cows to provide clean food is the first model in Ngoc Son Commune and Quynh Luu District.

The locality will create all conditions for Mr. Bay's family to expand the scale of the association; build a centralized slaughterhouse and expand the area. Regarding documents and procedures, including environmental assessment, the locality also directed the family to ensure that livestock farming is in accordance with regulations.

Viet Hung