My late father had a saying: “Selfs ‘n blinde hoender pik soms raak.” Loosely translated that means that by messing about randomly, you may just get lucky with an outcome! Though it sometimes feels this way, it’s not quite our intention at Fire Sky with our Ankole genetics.
The Ankole breed in SA is young, with extremely limited genetic variety and still exhibits/suffers from very low confidence regarding the repeatability of phenotype (1) traits or features one is trying to replicate. The breed standards allow for wide variety. The scarcity of especially female animals also means that each and every fertile female is being used for breeding. This is truly a breed where “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
Right now, we all still have access to first generation genetics from the original material imported by Mr Ramaphosa. Although they were born on SA soil, they are true Ugandan bloodlines. At Fire Sky we have a strong preference for such bloodlines and have now accumulated a total of 6 such cows. As they are, in most cases by now, mature cows, one can see exactly how the genetics translate into physical features and performance. Our original Ugandan Ankole cows can be seen in Section 1 of our online catalogue.
The new embryos recently imported via Kenya will add significantly to our gene pool, but unfortunately it will be many years before the potential is demonstrable and performance is proven.
At Fire Sky our second focus area regarding acquiring quality genetic material has been ‘proven’ second generation SA Ankole animals. Some early entrants into the Ankole space like Jack and Marielize Brotherton, the Fabers at Jacobsdal and Simon Hodgson have taken their herds in specific directions with well proven results. All 3 of these studs have contributed significantly to our breeding material. We have confidence in the R, A and LCM animals we have acquired. Some of these animals are on display in Section 2 of our online catalogue.
Dr Mornè de la Rey argues that on average the SA national Ankole herd has been improved over the years. Thus it would have been irresponsible for us as Fire Sky Genetics to not also acquire some stock from the people that have done this well. We proudly own fantastic young animals from Lumarie, Bennela and Full Blood Genetics, amongst others. See Section 3 of our online catalogue.
Perhaps it is because many of the early entrants into the Ankole space have come from the game industry at the peak of the ‘colour variant bubble’ that there is understandably significant interest in all unique colour variants. At Fire Sky we are clearly ‘traditionalists’ with a strong preference for the Ugandan Ankole ‘look’, but we have unashamedly catered for this current trend through some of the exceptional bont, black, golden brown and grey genetics with which we are breeding. You can see some great examples in Section 4 of our online catalogue.
We are now much clearer about where we want to take our stud going forward. We do have proven top genetics, both original Ugandan and subsequent South African genetics. We have so far made over 150 new female animals which will form the base of our stud and which we also intent to share with our fellow Ankole farmers.
1 Phenotype is the observable expression of the underlying genotype (Genotype is the unique sequence of DNA). Phenotype includes visible traits (like colour) as well as measurable traits (like height or weight or horn length.) It also refers to
characteristics related to individual development and behaviour.