Astudy On The Potential Of Blue Nile State For Sheep Ranching

A large track of native grassland is found in Blue Nile State. The component grass species of the state have over many years adapted to and survived on the soil of this area of Sudan. The existing potential of these natural grasses for sheep production was already reflected by the large flocks of sheep, cattle and goat as found from the structured questionnaire, the average flock size is 475 /head per sheep producer. The establishment of the proposed sheep ranch in the Blue Nile State will in part give a reflection of the needed factual guidelines to increase sheep production from natural grasslands and pasture. Also sheep production offers a profitable marketing alternative for crop residues, natural forages and other foodstuff, which may not be marketable otherwise, due to the high cost of transportation, big volume of the residues and long distances from the crop production areas. Real limitations to the Blue Nile State sheep producers are the number of lambs marketed, uniformity of market lambs and availability of lambs throughout the year. By combining different lambing times in the proposed ranch for sheep production, within the same flock, these three problems can be partly solved. By phase lambing, flock size can be increased making sheep more economical enterprise. Lambs can be available over 6-9 months of the year and lambs are more uniform. This study indicates that this kind of sheep production is economically feasible and profitable. The average rate of return to receipt reached 38%, the internal rate of returns of the proposed ranch reached more than 50%. The uncertainty and risk in this commercial sheep production is very low if a sound management is used with an accurate scientific information. This study suggest an establishment of the ranch for sheep production, with an average flock size of 5000 breeding ewes, near the crop production areas in fallow lands and a feedlots near Singa-ELdamazine highway to make it easy for moving and transportation of lambs to the market and inputs for productio