Brafords breed abundance
In the past, Brafords have been called the best-kept secret in the beef cattle world. However, it’s not a secret that these medium-framed animals are among the most fertile cattle on the planet.
“Its medium frame means that the animal is able to recover from a harsh winter much quicker than an animal with a large frame. That is why it’s the ideal animal for the Mpumalanga Highveld,” says Gert van der Merwe, founder of Bonheur Brafords. “A stressed animal cannot ovulate, and that makes conception impossible.”
We’re sitting in his farmhouse just outside Bethal in Mpumalanga. Since the early 1980s, Van der Merwe, a qualified veterinary technician, has been farming on this piece of land. Prior to this, he was an agricultural counsellor for the former OTK (now Afgri).
Initially he
