SHEIKH TECHNICAL VETERINARY SCHOOL (STVS)

CHAPTER one: introduction

1.1 Introduction to the field study

This report is about a field study of 3days that we (first year students) went with some of the tutors to
BORAO city, this type of study is one the methods used by STVS forester students learning by doing.
During the three days students observed, interview and had hands on activities in the process of collecting
information the burao livestock economy. This aimed at helping the student’s appreciate the different
activities carried in burao livestock sector.

1.2 BACK GROUND OF THE STUDY AREA:

BURAO is the second city of SOMALILAND as well as the capital of Togdheer region.
It is located in the mid of the country its climate is like the other cities of Somaliland, it is cold in winter and
hot in the summer it’s temperature is between(220c_330) It has population between 300,000 and 350,000
people. It is important commercial center. It has the largest livestock market in the region and brings
together traders from as far as BOSSOSO in the north east of Somalia, up to the boundary of Kenya.
There is many activities about livestock and livestock economy such as a modern slaughterhouse and also a
camel dairy farm and two tanneries of skin processing an the city has university called Burao university an
veterinary medicine is one of the faculties of the university .

Map shows the study area.

Fig 1.

Burao city

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 SHEIKH TECHNICAL VETERINARY SCHOOL (STVS)

CHAPTER TWO: OBJECTIVIES OF THE FIELD

2.1 Objectives of the field are:

 To collect data and information from different areas concerning livestock and livestock
economy.
 To observe the activities going in the live stock market,
 To get more experience about the activities going in the attached areas.

2.2 METHODOLOGY:

Observation

Interview

Observation

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CHAPTER THREE: ACTIVITIES CARIED OUT

3.1 BURAO HALAAL MEAT FACTORY:

History and background:
The factory is located 4km away from the city to the west direction. Burao Halaal-Food slaughterhouse was
constructed in 2000 and operation of the plant started in early 2004 after getting clearance license from
Dubai municipality. The whole area of the factory is 64 hectors and the building of the slaughterhouse is
100m2. they normally slaughter young animals in modern way for export and the slaughterhouse works only
one day in the week. The Slaughterhouse was constructed in such a way that it has both an automatic as well
as a manual section that are both operational currently. The automatic one flays 80-100 animals per hour
while the manual ones handle 300-400 per hour. There are three generators, pressurize, two refrigerated
vehicles with a capacity of 800-900 carcasses are kept before they are transported to Berbera airport for
export. The animal suppliers to the slaughter house are agents who collects the right aged animals from
Burao and it’s surrounding districts(Odweyne, Caynabo, Duruqsi, balliweyn, Dhoqoshi), and Hargiesa.

Structure of the workers in the factory: The slaughterhouse has an experienced workforce comprising of
Slaughter men, Evisceration team, Final line, checking team Dressers, Electricians, Technicians,
Veterinarians, Quality control team, Security and Cleaners.
.

Manager

Electric and
Admin/finan
technical Supervisor ce officer
officer
Liver/kidney/
Assessment Porters/meas
Plumber heart staff Secretary Drivers
electric urement staff
collectors
Sanitation/w
Checking
Mechanic aste disposal Security staff Storekeeper
staff
staff

Processing Liver and

Skinning staff
staff kidney seller

Cleaner’s Slaughter
staff staff
Fig 2

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 SHEIKH TECHNICAL VETERINARY SCHOOL (STVS)

3.1.1 Meat processing in the factory:

When the animals reach at the factory they are inspected by a vet doctor in the factory and the suspected
animals are sent back while the health ones are driven through a narrow channels called lairages to the pens
where they took rest for some time before they are slaughtered, the pens are large enough and good
ventilated. There is small lairages in the pen. The aim of the lairages is to prevent from escaping of the
animals.

Operation procedures:
Animals for slaughter are kept in holding grounds to rest while they are feed and provided with water. Since
the animals are exported to Muslim states it recommended that, they should be slaughtered according to the
Halaal standard as required by Islamic religion.
Other procedures are,
• Flaying and evisceration.
• Post mortem examination
• Preparation of carcasses
• Cleaning
• Last checking
• Quality control by veterinarian
• Dressing of carcasses using special clothing material (cotton)
• Cold storage for 24-48 hours when they are ready for export
• Transported to Berbera airport for export to UAE where he following documentations are given: Halaal
certificate, municipality certificate, Mol inspection certificate, invoice for the port authorities and relevant
ministries. from escaping of the animals.

Slaughtering:
The animals are slaughtered on a table according to Islamic shariah law, and after several minutes, the
carcass is washed to prevent from contamination and to clean.

3.1.2 Skinning: After the animal is slaughtered and washed, it is passed to the skinning section where the
skin, four legs, and the head are removed.

Evisceration: In this section, the abdominal, thoracic and pelvic cavities are opened and offal’s white (fore
stomach, abomasums, and intestines) and red (liver, lungs, and kidneys) are removed.

Cleaning and checking: When evisceration is finished, the carcass is put on a trolley (table like instrument,
which has many hangers).
The trolley can carry 50 carcasses each time, on the trolley the esophagus is removed and the carcass is
washed and passed to the checking point where it is checked whether the carcass is fit for human
consumption and also whether there is unwanted organs still present in the carcass.
Shrouding: the carcass is dressed with white cloth which transparent and then the carcass is weighed and
labeled with the day that the animal is slaughtered and lifespan and since the animals are exported to the
Muslim states it is important to indicate in the label that the animal is slaughtered in Islamic way (Halaal).

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Pre-chilling: before the carcass is taken into the chilling, it is taken into the pre-chilling that lowers the
temperature of the carcass down to (180c-150c). The aim of the pre-chilling is to make the carcass ready for
chilling because if the carcass is firstly put into the chilling the carcass lose a lot of water and also it loses
the weigh.

Chilling: after pre-chilling the carcass is passed to the chilling, the purpose of chilling is for prevention, the
chilling capacity is 800-900 carcasses the meat remains in the chilling for 30 hours and the temperature of
the chilling is about 40c

.
Carcasses in the chilling.

Loading and transporting: special Lorries that have refrigerators that keeps the meat cool transports the
carcass to Berbera airport where the meat is exported to Dubai.
3.1.4 Facilities of the factory:
 Large compound
 Four tanks for water storage
 Well equipped slaughtering hall
 Two big chillers
 Well developed water drainage
 Four lorries used to transport the meat

3.1.5 Constrains of the factory:

 Decreasing supply of the animals during drought seasons
 Un fair competition that caused decrease of the price of the meat

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 SHEIKH TECHNICAL VETERINARY SCHOOL (STVS)

3.2 BURAO TRADITIONAL SLAUTERHOUSE:

Burao traditional slaughterhouse locates in the east part of the city. This slaughterhouse is public. The
slaughterhouse was built in two phases the first part of the slaughterhouse was built in 1960s, this part is the
southern part, and the Somaliland government with the help of international NGOs in 1990s built the second
part. The area of the slaughterhouse is 700m2. The slaughterhouse contain three parts (sections) two of them
are designed for slaughtering sheep and goats , the workers of this section are women while the other
section is intended for the camels, the workers of this section are men.
The owners of the animals being slaughtered in the slaughterhouse give wages all the workers. The work
begin at 10:00pm and ends at 5:00am.
The number of animals, which are slaughtered per night in the slaughterhouse, is 300-400 sheep, goats, and
10-12 of camels.

3.2.1 Activities carried out in the slaughterhouse:

In the slaughterhouse, we carried out many activities on live animals like observation of the animal body
condition and also we did post mortem examination on the carcass and we took many photographs
describing the abnormalities we have seen.

3.2.2 Facilities of the slaughterhouse:

• Three water tanks used to clean the slaughterhouse;

• Three pens used to keep the animals before they are slaughtered.
• Hungers and tables used to slaughter the animals.

3.2.3 Slaughtering processing and transporting to the market:

The animals reach at the slaughterhouse at 10:00pm. When slaughtering, two women slaughter each animal,
one holds the animal and the other slaughter following the Islamic way. After that, the animal is hanged
from the hangers in the slaughterhouse in order to remove the skin from the animal. after skinning, the
offal’s ( red and white )are removed and the meat is cut into pieces and when complete all this work the
meat is transported by local government’s vehicles to the market (butchers) were the owners of the meat are
present and they begin selling.

3.2.4 Post mortem inspection and findings:

The number of animals we examined is 130 animals, the number of goats was 70, sheep 52, camels 8, the
total number of animals, which were infected, are 25 animals.

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The table below shows lesions and the organs affected.

Species Sex Number Organ affected Type of the lesion

of animals
Goats F 6 Liver Hemorrhages

Goats F 5 Fore stomachs Presence of plastic bags

Goats F 4 Fore stomachs Parasitic cysts

Goats F 3 Small Swollen and edematous

intestine(payers
patches)
Goats F 1 Liver Abscesses
Sheep F 3 Fore stomachs Presence of plastic bags
Sheep F 2 Liver Adhesions and inflammation
Sheep F 2 Liver, spleen Jaundice (yellow discoloration )
Sheep F 2 Payers patches Swollen and edematous
Sheep F 1 Fore stomachs Parasitic cyst
Camels M 1 Liver Inflammation and hemorrhages

Table no: 1

abnormal

liver

forestomach

intestine

This Pie chart representing abnormalities occording to the organs.

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 SHEIKH TECHNICAL VETERINARY SCHOOL (STVS)

This picture shows parasitic cyst. This picture shows (foreign bodies) plastic bags

3.2.5. Discussion and findings:

The most common lesions observed were liver abscesses and hemorrhages, Nodules on the rumen, icterus of
liver and hydro peritoneum.
The icterus or jaundice can be pre-hepatic, hepatic and post-hepatic but we expected in this case that the
causes could be by tick borne diseases since tick is common in the area.

3.2.6 Constraints of the slaughterhouse

 Lack of electricity
 Lack of shades, like roofs
 Water shortage
 Lack of enough well trained people in the slaughterhouse.
 Poor infrastructures
 Lack of well functioning water drainage

3.3 MAANDEEQ CAMEL DAIRY FARM:

Maandeeq dairy farm was established in 2003 but it began to work in 2004.
It is located 9 km western of burao city in togdheer region. Only camels are reared in the farm for milk
production. although the animals were not in the farm, but the number of animals reared in the farm is about
150 camels, the farm has two parts one for rearing the animals and the other for planting and cultivation of
various highly nutritive grass and plants such as, Zambia rods, Alfa alfa, puma rods, leuzania.
The animals are reared mostly in the farm but some times are driven outside of the farm to eat natural
pasture. The farm has four pens two for adult ones the other for calves and young animals the walls of the
pens have small holes for ventilation and calf mother communication.

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3.3.1 Feeding:
The animals are fed on trough in their pens two times in every 24 hours. The types of feed given the animals
are:
 silage
 green grass
 leaves of some plants (leuzania)
 chopped stems

3.3.2 Milking and milk marketing:

Animals are milked two times, morning and afternoon, they use milking machine for milking, the
machine can be used for two animals each time, and the animals are in crashes when they are being
milked.
The milk is transports with aluminum cans to the market, mainly they have specific customers, the price
of the milk produced by the farm is higher then the milk in the market because of their good quality and
good hygiene

3.3.3 Facilities of the farm:

a) Large compound for rearing the animals, planting and cultivation
b) Four pens kept the animals at night
c) Two crashes used to restrain the animals when milking
d) Milking machine
e) Good water storage and supply

Figure of milking machine figure of leuzania tree

3.3.4 Constraints of the farm:

o Diseases such as mastitis and tick borne diseases
o Drought and rain fall shortage

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3.4 BURAO LIVESTOCK MARKET:

The market is located in the west of the city, it occupy 2km2. The market can be classified as national
market because of the population and importance. Small ruminants (sheep and goats) are normally sold in
the market while the camels are being sold around the market. The market has two areas, one for male sheep
and goats designed for export and the other is for female intended for local consumption. The market has 22
pens used to keep the unsold animals and those waiting to be loaded; the pens are private sector, and the
owners in charges the traders to keep their animals at nighttime.
The market has two-municipality office and one for veterinary officers and one police station.
3.4.1 Market actors:
Market actor is any person participating at any level of the market and these are producers (farmers),
brokers, interregional traders and export trades.
Producers: these are the pastoralists, who keep the animals in the rural areas, and these people participate
in the market by bringing the animals to the market.
Brokers: the work of the brokers is
 Provide the buyer with guarantee that the animal is health and not stolen
 Provide the sellers with guarantee and fair price
 Seeks buyer, negotiate the price
Traders: they are the final link of the chain between the producers and consumers.
Interregional traders: these people buy certain class or age group for exporters.
Consumers: these are the final users of the products
.Livestock organization chart

Producers

Livestock
market

Brokers

Local Interregional Exporter

consumption traders traders

Butchers Individual Traders Butchers Carcass Live animals

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Fig 3.
3.4.2 Source of animals for the market:
Since the market is the largest in the region, the animals come from different places in the country like Ood-
wayne, Buuhoodle, Laas,aanood, Sheikh, Beer, Goroyo,ood, and it sometimes come from very far places
such as eastern part of Ethiopia and southern and mid regions of Somalia.
3.4.3 Demand and supply of the market:
The demand of the market depends generally on the export, so the demand is high during June until august,
Because these months are the main export periods of live animals to the Arabian Peninsula
The demand is also in the month mowliid (October/November) as well as the Idul fitri and Idul adha in the
Hajj season.
3.4.4 Price of animals:
The price is determined by different factors of which the main one is the demand, when the demand is high
the price will go high, also body condition is another factor which can influence the price fore example the
fat animals are higher price than the thin ones. The seasons like holly Ramadan and hajj, the animals are at
the highest prices.

This shows the price of the different grades of sheep and goats in the market:
Species Grade Price per animal

Sheep/goats 1 $50
Sheep/goats 2 $40
Seep/goats 3 $38
Table no 2.
This table shows the taxes, and wages of the brokers
Species Taxes Wages of the brokers
Goats 1000 s/l shillings 2000 s/l shillings
Sheep 1000s/l shillings 2000 s/l shillings
Camel 5000s/l shillings 10000 s/l shillings
Cattle 4000 s/l shillings 8000 s/l shillings
Table no 3.

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3.4.5 Role of municipality:

 Collects taxes from the market
 provide certification the animals sold
 control the activities of the market
 keep the hygiene of the market
 keep security of the market
3.4.6 Facilities of the market:
• two shades use to shade the animals
• one disposal point
• five toilets
• twenty two pens used to keep the animals
3.4.7 Constraints of livestock market:
 Lack of good shading
 Lack of proper disposal points
 Lack of enough water points

3.5 BURAO MILK MARKET:

The market locates in the center of the city, the area of the market is about 100m2 and each seller has 2m2.
the market is designed for milk so it can be classified as very short period market for the reason that the
milk is highly perishable product. The activity of the market begins at 9:00am and finishes at 4:00pm; the
cause that the market begins at late time is the farness of the sources of milk and the roughness of the roads
in the rural areas.
The market has many small shades made from cartoons, cloths and wood, most of the market actors are
women.
3.5.1Source of the milk:
Since the milk is perishable product, it has to reach at the market as early as possible. The milk is
transported by tracks from different places around Burao like Oodweyne, Beer, Suuqsade, Goroyo’ood, and
others.

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3.5.2 Price of milk.

The price of the milk is determined by the demand and supply.
Fresh milk is at the highest price because of their quality and good test.
Price of the milk and taxation.
Type of milk Price per baydh =(0.90lier) Taxes per seven liters
Sheep/goats 5500s/l shillings 500s/l shillings
Cattle 4500s/l shillings 500s/l shillings
Camel 3500s/l shillings 500s/l shillings
Table no 4.
3.5.3Types of milk:
Types of milk according to their source
1) Camel
2) Sheep and goats
3) Cattle
Types of milk according to their grades
1) Fresh milk
2) Sour milk
3.5.4 Constraints of the milk market:
 Shortage of milk during drought seasons
 Poor hygiene and sanitation
 Poor of transport facilities like roads
 Lack of proper storage of milk

This is the feature of Burao milk market

CHAPTER: four conclusion and recommendation:

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 SHEIKH TECHNICAL VETERINARY SCHOOL (STVS)

4.1 Conclusion:
All the visited institutions, the work was going on well, fore example in the modern slaughterhouse, the
animals were slaughtered in the night and the carcasses were ready for export in the morning. We observed
the procedure of the slaughtering on two goats bought by STVS.
In Maandeeq camel dairy farm, the camels were not in the farm, but we observed the compound. The
compound was heavily affected by prolonged drought.
In the livestock market, the market was busy; there were many activities of selling and buying going there.
We interviewed various stockholders and the information obtained was very educator.
In addition, we visited to the slaughterhouse at night when the work was going well and we carried out
various activities like visual appraisal and post-mortem examination. Although there was lack of electricity,
the overall activities in the slaughterhouse were good. In the milk market, we asked questions to the sellers
and buyers and the condition of the market was normal.

4.2 Recommendation:
Despite the fact that the places visited were fully operating, there are some areas a portrayed in the
conclusion that needs to be addressed. These are a portrayed in the recommendation below

 The government should provide electricity to the traditional slaughterhouse in Burao

 The local government should improve the hygiene of the slaughterhouse
 The government and international NGOs should establish a good shading to the slaughter house and
livestock market
 The local and international NGOs should give to the workers an slaughterers of the slaughterhouse
 The government should provide permanent water supply to the livestock market
 The government should encourage the owners of the camel dairy farm and give free veterinary
service an drugs to them
 The local government should give the milk sellers in the milk market good storage materials

Reference:
Books

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Internet
handouts

ssQUESTIONNAIRE OF LIVESTOCK MARKET

Questionnaires for trader

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 SHEIKH TECHNICAL VETERINARY SCHOOL (STVS)

1. How many agents work in the market?

2. How do you value the animal?
3. In which aspects do you consider when paying and selling of animals?
4. Do the traders have license from the government?
5. Do you give out commission to the brokers?
6. Where do you transport the animal? And which country
7. What is the period between buying and selling of the animals?
8. At what season do the animals have the highest demand for the traders?
9. Do you give out any veterinary services to the animal?
10. Do you transport live animals?

Questionnaire for producers

1. Under which system do you rear the animals?
2. What is the major purpose you sell your animals?
3. Which species you rear mostly?
4. Mostly Which disease you experience in your farming system?
5. What are the kinds of drugs you give the diseased animal?
6. Which source you do you get drugs from?
7. Where do you market your product mostly?
8. Which season do you supply your products to the market?
9. Do you market any other products than live animals?
10. If yes, what are these products?
11. Which market do you supply your by-products?
12. Which transport do you use for your animals to take to the market?
13. Do you have direct contact with traders?

QUESTIONNAIRES FOR BROKERS

1. How many animals do you sell per day?
2. Do you have licenses from the government?
3. How do you communicate with farmers and traders?
4. How do you identify whether the animal is stolen or not?
5. Whom do you charge your commission?
6. At what time does the market opens and closes?

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