ZICORBA boosts breeding stock
BUSINESS REPORTER
The Zimbabwe Commercial Rabbit Breeders Association (ZICORBA) has boosted its breeding stock by more than 1000 pure breeds barely a year after rolling out the national pure breed programme to anchor the sustained growth of the country’s cuniculture sector.
An additional 6 000 breeders would be realised from the ongoing national rabbit pure breed roll-out programme, which is being bankrolled by one of the association’s corporate members, Raymeg Holdings, ZICORBA vice president, Siphosethu Ncube-Moyo said.
“We are very encouraged by the progress made since we first launched the pure rabbit breed roll-out programme about 10 months ago with an initial stock of 180 imported rabbits.
This is part of our strategy of ensuring that our rabbit farmers have adequate quality breeding stock to produce unencumbered,” Ncube-Moyo told ZICORBA’s newsletter, Bunny World.
Under the pure breed roll-out programme, ZICORBA members receive breeding stock which they pass on to the next member after they kindle twice.
Tapiwa Nyagwambo, a ZICORBA member based in Mashonaland East and beneficiary of the pure breed roll-out programme said: “The does have shown a very good mothering ability after attaining a 99.9% survival rate at weaning and the weight gains are remarkable.”
He said the pure breeds have a high feed to meat conversion ratio which was proven by weekly average weight gains of 150 grammes reaching about 1.8 to 2kgs at 8 weeks for weaners. “which is very good for meat rabbits and enabling the breeder to sell at the premium age” .
A Bulawayo-based rabbit producer Munyaradzi Chioto said the New Zealand breeds he received have a high reproductive rate compared to native breeds he has been rearing.
“In the past, I used to specialise in native breeds which took 6 months to grow, which were very costly. However, the 4 pure breeds I received were a good boost to my rabbitry. With the use of the pure breed buck, we have managed to get 65 kits which are growing fast like never before,” Chioto said.
Harare-based rabbit farmer and ZICORBA member, Neil Francisco, described the pure breed programme as a success.
“I received New Zealand White pure breeds in February, I started breeding them in April, and to date I have 13 kits from 3 does. In August, I expect more kits before I pass on the initial breeding stock to the next farmer,” Francisco said.
Other beneficiaries of the programme Anna Mary Gapa (Gokwe) and Kingston Rakupeni (Manicaland) hailed the exercise and encouraged recipients to ensure that proper care is given to the breeding stock to so that as many farmers as possible could benefit.
