Press Releases

About Los Murmullos

Media: La Nación Newspaper(www.lanacion.com)
Date: 11/03/07

Patagonian cattle farming strives to beat the weather

With genetics, management and innovation, the cattle sector calls on inventiveness to optimize productive suggestions and continue to provide kilos of meat to the country..

CHOLILA, Chubut.- Los Murmullos farm is made up of 6,000 hectares located only a few kilometers from Cholila, a town with high levels of crime up until a few years ago, now turned into a tourist destination.

There, about 120 kilometers from Esquel, Silvia and Hugo Sigman developed an innovative idea, with high genetic quality and management, aimed at ruralizing the Hereford breed and achieve an animal "fir for every purpose". Precisely in this context, Los Murmullos (www.losmurmullos.com) carried out a successful first auction which, in the opinion of geneticist Carlos Ojea Rullán, “a national average record was achieved, even beating the cabañas in Outer Buenos Aires." Rullán added that the categories where this happened were donor cows, 50% of calves, registered purebred bulls, and pedigree purebred bulls.

The average prices were divided in two: dehorned cattle and cattle with horns (this type of animal is not very sought-after as their handling is very complex). Dehorned: 50% pedigree donor cows, $17,250; 50% purebred pedigree female calves, $10,500; open female calves and cows, $6,333; pregnant receiver cows, $4,750; pedigree purebred bulls, $15,500; registered purebred bulls, $6,020; bulls S/, $16,750; registered purebred open cows, $1,800; registered purebred female calves, $1,500. Cattle with horns: 50% donors, $7,000 and registered purebred bulls, $3,720. Los Murmullos has a livestock of 500 registered purebred cows, receiver cows to achieve 100 registered purebred pregnancies a year, and a livestock of 1,000 to 1,200 permanent male calves which adapt to the rigorous weather conditions, under an innovative system which combines genetics, management and commercial strategies.

A seasonal service is carried out at the farm, with fixed-time double insemination, which allows to schedule births around the weather. All services are concentrated within 60 days. Two years ago, they began carrying out premature weaning, with excellent results. “The issue was that the cows could not go up the high mountains with the calves in order to feed, and they returned in pretty bad shape. Another result of premature weaning was the increase in the number of animals per hectare. Calves are weaned in December or January, and the cows accumulate a silo of fat, so they go up the mountains in excellent state,” explained Hernán Harispe, the facilities manager.

With this approach, they managed to increase pregnancy percentages by four points. The work of these people, who are building Patagonian farming, is based on the visualization of three key points: that the animals' ruralization is not achieved without appropriate feeding, even knowing that the phenotype would not manifest without a good supplement, as well as outstanding genetics and farming management which allows the availability of forage between March and November (when snow covers everything), from a seasonal (and explosive in the summer) production of grass.

They also made some inroads into an experience with an enclosed pen, which had up to 2,500 animals and turned into the southernmost significant feed lot in the country, but was discontinued this year due to corn costs (mostly coming from the south of Buenos Aires) and the contained value of meat.

Achievement

The first great achievement of Los Murmullos was winning a total of four female great champion awards during the last 7 years, as well as a Great Male Champion and a few other minor award ribbons from the Palermo track. "This result encourages us to keep going, because it is the first time in history that a Patagonian farm wins a prize such as this one. In the 150-year history of the Rural, a farm from marginal areas had never won," Sigman recalls. The work was aimed at adapting the genetic potential of the area, under the premise of Carlos Ojea Rullán, whose work is based on achieving the right balance between the size of the cows and their meat production, in order to optimize the number of cows per hectare. “The key of our business is to keep the balance between what our livestock can offer and the environment, otherwise, nature always makes us pay,” he concluded.

By Marianela Garbini
For LA NACION

The key is to diversify CHOLILA, Chubut.- The married couple formed by biochemist Silvia Gold and psychiatrist Hugo Sigman diversifies their activities in several areas which go from films to the pharmaceutical industry, and of course, agribusiness.

Apart from the exploitation of the six thousand hectares in Los Murmullos, where wooden pieces are also produced, using a very interesting native wood recovery approach (to be sold at the Malba from next month) and the manufacture of natural jams, the Sigman corporation exploits around 120,000 hectares of agriculture and 90,000 of farming throughout the country. Furthermore, they manage two significant forestry companies, carry out an ambitious production program, but also of release, of caymans to the Iberá (www.yacarepora.com.ar); they produce films and manage Fundación Mundo Sano (www.mundosano.org). “We've always liked working with live beings, and with health in general," they agreed. http://www.lanacion.com.ar/Archivo/nota.asp?nota_id=958643

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/Archivo/nota.asp?nota_id=958643