ADSL on its last legs in South Africa

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  By   Daniel Puchert Partially state-owned telecommunications company Telkom announced in its financial results for the year ending 31 March 2025 that its ADSL subscribers had more than halved to under 30,000. According to the company’s operational data, ADSL lines decreased from 64,959 in March 2024 to 29,770. This 54.2% decline highlights that the legacy broadband technology is slowly approaching the end of the road. Telkom’s ADSL business peaked at the end of March 2016 with 1.01 million subscribers — two years after fibre upstart Vumatel  broke ground in Parkhurst . What followed was a sharp decline in Telkom ADSL subscribers. Customers connected to its copper networks decreased by more than 500,000 over the next four years. This was partly driven by Telkom itself, which began actively switching off its copper network in some neighbourhoods. If it did not have fibre in the area, it would offer a “fixed line lookalike” wireless service that ran over its cellular ...
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Dehorning your beef cattle can help boost profits

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 September 5, 2021 at 10:22 am

Removing the horns from your cattle holds a number of advantages. Most importantly, it will prevent the problem of bruised meat.

Dehorning your beef cattle can help boost profits
Many indigenous cattle breeds, like the Nguni, are horned. While horns may look attractive, the animals can easily hit each other with them, resulting in bruising. In South Africa, bruised meat may not be sold for human consumption. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Bruised meat on carcasses, usually caused by horn blows during transport or in a cattle crush, is condemned for human consumption at abattoirs, causing great financial loss. Dehorning cattle will help prevent this.

Dehorned cattle can also be fed more easily, and there is less interference from dominant animals.

In addition, dehorned animals take up less space. This means that more can fit into a truck, more can be accommodated in a kraal, and more can stand around a trough to feed or drink.

Methods
There are several ways to remove an animal’s horns. Two methods are suitable for smallholders who have only a few cattle.

The caustic stick method
Apply caustic soda (in stick or paste form) to the horn bud before the calf is 10 days old. Be sure to keep the calf out of the rain after treatment, as the caustic soda can run down and hurt its face. Moreover, when the calf suckles, the caustic soda can harm the cow’s udder.

The hot iron method
When the calf is three to six weeks old, burn the horn-forming tissue at the base of the horn bud with a debudding iron heated by gas or fire.

Heat the iron until dull red, press it onto the bud, and move it slowly in a circular motion for about 10 seconds. Hold the calf firmly to ensure the best results.

If the bud is too large, first remove the tip with a sharp pocket knife.

Other methods are not recommended, as these leave open wounds, which can lead to complications. Horn stubs may also develop.
In adult cattle, dehorning is best performed by a veterinarian, as mistakes can lead to fatalities.

Source: www.dalrrd.gov.za

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