SILVERBACK RANCH & MINE UPDATES
Norton Maize Crop Update
February 2021
HotBurn Minerals Mine update
January 2021
SilverBack Asset Management currently offers two investment options. The first being an investment in cattle though through the 'Mombe Mari' fund. The second is an in investment in Gold/Silver though the 'Ndarama' fund.
Hotburn owns 450 Ha of Claims covering the famous Tafuna Hill in Shamva District of Mashonaland Central. Initially, capital raised through Silverback’s Gold Fund will be invested into Hotburn.
Norton Dipping Update
December 2020
We dip all the cattle weekly using a Coopers product Decatix which also has a biting fly adjuvant in. Samples are taken biannually to test efficacy of strength.
We round up the cattle, count them and then dip. We weigh monthly & tag register all animal to monitor progress.
Norton Ranch Update
October 2020
Everything continues to go very well at the Norton Ranch, with a lot of overall progress and development. It has been a very interesting period with a large number of calves dropping every day!
All the same sized calves are from our artificial insemination syncronisation program. The genetic progress using proven stud sires with EBV's ( expected breeding values). The other calves are all from stud bulls chosen on EBV's.
This makes selection criteria of future breeding stock that much easier as all the calves are from the same contemporary group. Cows showing lots of capacity to produce milk & be able to re conceive in the coming bulling season.
Dubane Ranch Update
August 2020
Exciting progress continues to be made on Dubane Ranch, the team on the ground are working tirelessly to accomplish our vision of being the leading cattle breeders in Zimbabwe while contributing to the growth and re-establishment of the national herd. Dubane is the largest ranch we currently occupy, unfortunately the ranch has been derelict and under-utilised for more than two decades, as a result we have embarked on a massive, very modern approach to the reestablishment of the ranch.
Roads have now been reconstructed along with drainage in all the correct places, this has been essential to allow feasible access to these properties and bring in cattle, feed trucks and requirements such as fencing, water reticulation, building materials, etc. We recently documented some of the progress on the ranch, specifically:
1- The Elephant Trench
2- Water development
3- Pregnancy Diagnosis ( 88% )
The Elephant Trench - Due to the location of Dubane Ranch we have had a major problem with Elephants in the area. Elephants have been doing significant damage to our pipelines, dipping facilities and any where that there is water. As so much work is going into water development we decided to build a trench along certain boundaries to keep elephants out. It has been a massive job, but once completed it will save a lot of time and money in the long run. This trench is the first successful elephant boundary!
Water Development - When we first occupied Dubane ranch very few water points were operational, a lot of work has gone into locating pipelines and water extraction from any available sources. We are currently in the process of reinstalling all the original pipelines ( +/- 80km ) and additional water sources to plumb to the new network. There are also various sand extraction points that have been very successful in pumping water for the cattle to drink.
Pregnancy Diagnosis -This year we achieved a PD of 88%
The PD are attributed to paying constant attention to the breeding herds, this includes:
1- Bull soundness
2- Cows having enough pastures to ovulate
3- Free from both internal and external parasites
4- Vaccine Schedule up to date
5- Summer mineral licks
So much detail has to be looked at to get the results we got this year of 88%.
Thank you for reading, we look forward to sharing new updates as we go!
