After expanding from cattle into sheep and goats, Mahlatse Bonoko quickly discovered that growing a livestock business was about more than buying animals. Heavy losses to heartwater forced the Limpopo farmer to rethink animal health and breeding as he rebuilt his flocks.
By Maile Matsimela, digital editor at African Farming
Mahlatse learnt some of his most expensive farming lessons through the animals he lost. As his livestock operation at Ga-Mashashane, Limpopo, expanded beyond cattle, he ventured into sheep and Boer goats. But disease soon showed him how costly a lack of knowledge could be.
Heartwater swept through his livestock during his early years, killing lambs and goat kids.
“It was through trial and error that I lost many of my animals because I simply did not know enough,” Mahlatse says.
The losses could have ended his attempts to diversify. Instead, they pushed him to seek knowledge from farmers’ days, experienced livestock producers and training programmes.
Mahlatse describes those difficult years as part of his agricultural education.
“As youngsters, we go to school to learn. Farming has been my university. I’ve paid my school fees through mistakes, losses and experience. Today, I understand far more than I did when I started.”
Also read: ‘Farming has been my university’: How Mahlatse Bonoko turned losses into a 40-cattle operation
Improving his sheep flock
Mahlatse introduced sheep after moving his cattle from the backyard to communal grazing camps. He started with Pedi sheep and later introduced a Van Rooy ram to improve the flock.
The early years were difficult. Heartwater claimed several lambs, but Mahlatse persisted and says the quality of his sheep has since improved significantly.
The experience reinforced a lesson that had also begun shaping his cattle enterprise: simply owning livestock was not enough. He needed to understand how breeding and management decisions affected the animals he would produce in future.
Also read: From feedlotting to breeding genetics: Mahlatse Bonoko is building the commercial cattle herd he wants
Rebuilding his Boer goats
His Boer goat enterprise delivered an equally difficult lesson.
Mahlatse initially bought three ewes, but disease losses were so severe that only one of those original animals remains alive. Rebuilding meant he also had to think carefully about how to grow the herd without creating another problem – inbreeding.
He began exchanging female goats with neighbouring farmers, bringing different bloodlines into his herd rather than continually breeding closely related animals. Breeding males are also separated from the females outside the breeding season, giving Mahlatse greater control over mating.
Also read: Sheep and goats drive Mapitsi Mashego’s growing small-stock enterprise
Knowledge came at a price
The sheep and goat enterprises are therefore about more than adding two commodities to Mahlatse’s farming operation.
They represent some of the hardest lessons of his journey.
Animals were lost before he understood enough about the diseases threatening them. But those losses changed the way he approaches livestock farming and strengthened his determination to keep learning.
Today, the sheep flock has been rebuilt and improved, while his Boer goat herd continues to recover through more deliberate breeding and management. For Mahlatse, those animals are evidence of how far he has come from the farmer who once relied largely on trial and error.
The losses cannot be recovered, but the knowledge gained from them now influences how he manages the livestock that remains, and how he plans to grow his farming business.
Coming up in Part 4: Mahlatse turns to the soil to tackle one of livestock farming’s biggest expenses. We look at his journey into yellow maize, producing his own feed, the crop failures along the way and the devastating discovery of stray cattle in the maize field he had been waiting to harvest.
Also read:
Communal farming that pays: Boer goats and Meatmaster sheep driving profit in Limpopo
Breeding for growth: How Masala Murovhi is building his livestock operation
How communal farmers could cash in on SA’s R1.2 billion goat meat export plan
