THE FARM

HISTORY

The farm was purchased in 1992, with a total area of 462ha, about 20ha of pasture and a initial herd of 11 animals. This first year, improvement was limited to improving the pasture, rebuilding the existing fencing and learning the local conditions. In the following years, we began the expansion of the pasture area with acquisition of some boundary land, replanting of old areas and establishment of new pastures. The useful area is now 200 ha. All the land is located in swampy river area.

In 1997 we purchased a new boundary land, this time on a firmly land. The total area is 200ha of pasture formed of "braquiarão"( Brachiaria brizantha) and "quicuio"(Brachiaria humindícula)

In 1998 we purchased another boundary land, the "Kacuri" farm. A firmly land with pasture of "quicuio"(Brachiaria humindícula), the useful area is 400ha. Now are not utilizing the area by the herd because we are still cleaning the area.

AREA

The total area is 1.300 ha, 200 ha of pasture in swampy river area at the bank of Moju's river and 600 ha of pasture in firmly area.

PASTURE TYPE

We have various type of pasture, we utilized in swampy river area many species such as: tanner-grass (Brachiaria radicans), quicuio (Brachiaria humindícula), canarana-erecta-lisa (Echinochloa pyramidalis) e canarana de paramaribo (Echinocloa polystachya); and in the firmly area: braquiarão (Brachiaria brizantha) e quicuio (Brachiaria humindícula)

HERD

The option to raise water buffalo always fascinated us, because the animals are very crude and precocious. These animals are demonstrating its qualities both in swampy river area (where they are the best) but in firmly areas it is also demonstrating excellent results.

The difficulty of obtain animals of tested progeny guide us to form our own breeding females. We chose the Murrah breed because of the precocity and high production of milk. We think that to obtain "super precocious" calves we must have females of good production of milk.

Nowadays, our herd are composed of Murrah breeding females and we use also Murrah semen in the artificial insemination.

RESEARCH

The aim to produce heavier animals in a short period of time, guide us to invest in the last years on researches to improve the herd.  Presently, we are developing the following researches:

• Introduction of Artificial Insemination (Introduced since 1997)
• Production of water buffalo at 12 months of age to 400 kg average weight using feeding regime of only dam's milk and pasture. This goal was reached with the earliest water buffalo x-Bufalo of SI borne in 1999
• Obtain heifer's pregnant at 14 months (Reached in1996)
• Introduction of rotation pasture (Introduced at 1999)
• Get embryo to improve the herd (We began at 2001 - It's in progress)
• To make uso of FIV to get embryo ( We began at 2002 - It's in progress)
• Production of water buffalo at 240 days of age to 400 kg. We are studying this goal, but we believe that it will be reached in a shot period
• Use imported semen to get the largest herd without blood relation with the Brazilian herd (We began at 2000 with A.I. and we enlarge at 2002 with a purchase of 19 females from EMBRAPA, descendent of imported semen)
• To take out semen of the highlight animals of the herd ( We began at 2002 with the male: X-Búfalo da SI )
• To build a data base with information that can give us foundation to new research (Introduced since 1994)
• Mensal control of the herd - Monthly all the animals are weighted. (Introduced since 1996)
• Mensal control of the herd - Monthly, the milk production of the best females is controlled (Introduced since 1998)
• Mensal control of the herd - Monthly, we measure the scrotal circumference of the calves (Introduced since 1999)