Export to Nepal |
For most everyday farmers, their top priority is not to feed the baby goats (kids) all day, every day. A highly efficient and reliable way to help the goat farmers of Nepal is to send them automatic kid feeders with milk replacer. This will allow the kids to have a consistent, regulated diet with free choice access and will ensure they are always content and never stressing over a lack of, or change in feed. With a large supply of kids, along with clean, healthy housing options, Nepal can easily sustain a successful goat industry.
Biotic Industries, a company located in the United States, is well known for their automatic feeders. They make many different kid feeders including the LAC-TEK model. The LAC-TEK feeder creates a constant supply of milk when needed in order to feed up to 60 kids. This particular model uses a simple method; it has a 25lb hoper located at the top of the machine and a 2.5 gallon water heater (Biotic Industries, Inc. 2015). It then dispenses the required amount of milk replacer into 1-2L of warm water, depending on the concentration of milk desired, and mixes it appropriately. There is a sensor near the bottom of the milk container that triggers more milk to be made when required. This allows the kids a consistent supply of warm fresh milk all day. In order for the feeder to be useful for Nepal they need milk replacer. There are many Canadian companies that make milk replacer, which could be exported to Nepal. A milk replacer with high protein and fat content is required for optimum growth and development of the kids, while a low cost is still needed so the Nepalese can afford the product. The company Canadian Agri-blend is dedicated to a “high quality 100% all milk high protein and high fat milk replacer for kid goats” (Canadian Agri-Blend, nd). Therefore any well-developed milk replacer at a low price is best. Below is a comparison of a few companies that are viable options to export to Nepal. |
Biotic Industries is always growing and developing, and even just recently came out with a new model called NURSO-TEK. NURSO-TEK uses the same idea as the LAC-TEK design except that it only feeds 40 kids instead of 60. This has the potential to be an even better option for Nepal than the LAC-TEK feeder since Nepal’s goat herds are typically of smaller sizes than ones in Canada and the smaller feeder is a slightly cheaper option.
There are also options of other brands of automatic feeders. Most of these brands; DeLaval, Lely, etc. are from Europe, and due to none of them actually being Canadian owned or manufactured, will therefore not necessarily help the Canadian economy. These feeders could be sent to help Nepal but they would be more expensive options, with DeLaval costing over $2000 while the Biotic Industries product only costs $1534.30 (DeLaval, n.d). Therefore these other brands of the same feeder are not necessarily the best option to export to Nepal. A different look on the same idea brings up the option of Milkbars, which are a product manufactured by Coburn Industries, a company located in the United States. The Milkbar benefits Canada just as the LAC-TEK product does through the oil industry. The Milkbar uses a different approach when feeding the milk replacer, one would have to make the milk replacer by hand then put it in the Milkbar, but there is only enough for one feeding so it would need to be done a minimum of three times a day for optimum benefits of the milk replacer (KidGrow, n.d.). Therefore, this alternative does not save as much time and does not have the same free choice milk benefit as the automatic feeders do. Although it does have the benefit of being a much cheaper option, costing $111.15 CDN (Coburn, n.d.), which is a very important factor for a developing country such as Nepal. |
Other Potential Export Products |