Post by Trade Coach on Jun 23, 2019 22:08:39 GMT 1
This post is for the purpose of revealing and discovering the potential economic value of the animal in the country.
You can’t do grasscutter business for two years and be poor. That is if you are serious in doing it. Today, grasscutter is sold between N5,000 per kg and above. Four to five hundred grasscuters in a year could earn you between N2.5 million and N3 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 delivers about twice a year. Each pregnancy produces average of five to eight young ones. Can you imagine what that could be if they keep multiplying?
This offers small-scale farmers, investors, businessmen and all those with wealth mindset an economic incentive for raising grasscutters in captivity when they discovered that grasscutter is one of the animals that are extremely suitable for commercial rearing, as a farmer who manages the business very well can make up to N2.5 to N3 million in a year.
Grasscutters are in high demand, attract market price and the small amount of investment required makes grasscutters a suitable mini-livestock activity for income generation. Unfortunately, this business has been neglected because people consider it as bush animal.
Starting grasscutter farming requires just little capital as low as N60,000 to N100,000 but the most important thing is housing (cage), which could cost N40,000 for a full family of grasscutter that comprises one male and four females as they live in colony.
Grasscutters eat normal grass, sugarcane leaves and its stems, the animal can also be fed with formulated concentrates like pellet as well as other processing byproducts like wheat bran, corn bran, groundnut, soy, oilseed, cotton seed cakes, brewer yeast, grain legume pods, brewers’ grains, maize shucks and cobs, brewer’s yeast and domestic waste food as feed supplements.
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 placed with a male to mate with them.
If grasscutter farming is properly managed and harnessed, it could boost the economy of a nation, create more jobs and alleviate poverty.
The demand for grasscutter is also high in top-class hotels, eateries, supermarkets and restaurants, which often stock the tasty bush meat. The meat is of a higher protein but lower fat content than domesticated farm meat and it is also appreciated for its tenderness and taste.
Our findings show that grasscutters worth millions of naira, were bred and sold in Nigeria and exported to the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and France due to high demand for its meat by Nigerians who live in those countries.
