Record-Breaking, High-Altitude Ngunis

On 9 May 2020, the Biggs family, who farms in the Eastern Cape, sold a Nguni herd sire for a world-record price of R310 000. Clive Biggs spoke to Mike Burgess about the family’s well-adapted Nandi Nguni stud in the foothills of the Drakensberg near Cedarville.

- Mike Burgess

“Our goal is to preserve the original Nguni traits by letting nature guide us,’’ says Clive Biggs, who, with his father, Lionel, and brother, Brian, is a member of the LBC Biggs Trust. This approach, in a nutshell, is the main breeding objective of the family’s Nandi Nguni stud of 700 breeding female animals, one of the oldest and largest Nguni studs in South Africa. The Nandi stud, which is run on sour veld at an altitude of between 1 600m and 2 100m, is expected to produce efficiently despite minimal inputs. The herd’s abilities under these extensive conditions are continually fine-tuned by selection from some of the finest Nguni bloodlines to improve functional efficiency, adaptability, disease resistance, fertility, balanced milk production, mothering ability and productive longevity.

“A central factor in improving our herd has been the use of the best genetics we could find,’’ explains Clive. “There are some bloodlines that have proven to be the best, and today, we have a combination of some of the oldest.’’

THE DEVELOPMENT OF NANDI NGUNIS

As early as 1977, Lionel and his older brother Victor began selecting Ngunis while farming in Matatiele in the Eastern Cape. The brothers’ involvement in livestock speculation enabled them to source optimal Nguni-type genetics eight years before the Nguni Cattle Breeders’ Society of South Africa was established in 1985.