Calls for regulation
A ruminant expert, Mr Tunmise Olagbaju, has lamented scarcity of West African dwarf goat for breeding, stating that barbeque (Asun) merchants are always buying the goats in bulk from the market.
Olagbaju, while speaking with the Nigerian Tribune, said what goat sellers usually say is that barbeque merchants are ready to pay any amount to get them. He stated further: “Sometimes when we go to the market to buy and we could not pay the price tag of the goat, those barbeque merchants are already there, ready to pay.
“The last time I went to the market, I could not get mature animals, we refer to them as spent does, that is goat that has given birth once or twice. And this has been happening for quite sometime now.
“It became a source of worry because this is a dangerous trend and the reason is that mature female goat are the ones we should use for breeding. Now, I need animal to breed on my farm, I cannot get mature ones, I need mature spent does for my research, I could not get because some merchants of goats who buy and sell to make asun are always at the market coming for the female goats.
“And they do not even care whether the female is a breeding female or a spent female. If it is a spent female, I would not even have issues about that, but breeding females, West African dwarf female goat production is being threatened because there is going to be a serious crisis very soon.
“Because we will not have enough female goats to produce for our consumption and I think we need to really look at this, we need to advocate. We should regulate how female goats are being slaughtered. West African dwarf female goats that are still actively breeding should not be sold for asun making.
“We are already destroying the lives that can give us the next generation of West African dwarf female goats. If this trend conitues, a time is coming when we will not have West African dwarf female goat again or that we will not have the number that can sustain our animal protein requirement because the female ones that are mature and that are producing are the ones that asun merchants are buying and killing.”
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