Interesting expressions can be found the world over. This one was on one of the offices at the Ministry of Agriculture where the training for Community Animal Health Workers took place. Unfortunately, we were unable to discuss the meaning of it and how they interpreted its message.
Cattle in southern Ethiopia are much like those in other parts of Africa, but we did see some “wattle” cattle (note the pendulous skin under the cow’s throat) there that we had not seen elsewhere.
Cattle graze the open lands here so their owners have the same dilemma facing that American cattlemen to identify them. In southern Ethiopia ear “notching” and skin “carving” systems are often used in most creative ways to identify cattle. This is an interesting contrast to the U.S. where a major effort on the part of the beef industry has been targeted at eliminating hot iron brands as a means of ID in order to reduce the damage to hides they cause. The hides of these cattle in Ethiopia are clearly damaged, and it does cause a reduction in their value. Part of this CAHW training is targeted at improving hide quality, particularly in goats whose skins provide leather for export markets which have been important to the Ethiopian economy. The primary damage to goat hides appears to be caused by external parasites, not ID systems such as those in these cattle.
Interesting expressions can be found the world over. This one was on one of the offices at the Ministry of Agriculture where the training for Community Animal Health Workers took place. Unfortunately, we were unable to discuss the meaning of it and how they interpreted its message.
Cattle in southern Ethiopia are much like those in other parts of Africa, but we did see some “wattle” cattle (note the pendulous skin under the cow’s throat) there that we had not seen elsewhere.
Cattle graze the open lands here so their owners have the same dilemma facing that American cattlemen to identify them. In southern Ethiopia ear “notching” and skin “carving” systems are often used in most creative ways to identify cattle. This is an interesting contrast to the U.S. where a major effort on the part of the beef industry has been targeted at eliminating hot iron brands as a means of ID in order to reduce the damage to hides they cause. The hides of these cattle in Ethiopia are clearly damaged, and it does cause a reduction in their value. Part of this CAHW training is targeted at improving hide quality, particularly in goats whose skins provide leather for export markets which have been important to the Ethiopian economy. The primary damage to goat hides appears to be caused by external parasites, not ID systems such as those in these cattle.
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