GRASSCUTTER FARMING

When you think about becoming wealthy, you probably think of a high-paying job, a high yielding investment portfolio or a partnership to launch a new product or services that will roll in millions. But what assurance do you have on getting adequate funds and market for these services or products?

Have you ever wondered why the government and the private sector are placing more emphasis on small business opportunities and financing in the country today? Have you ever come across a grasscutter farm? Can you imagine the financial gains accruing to those men and women who deal in grasscutter business at one stage or the other?

What about the nutrition benefits the people who patronize pepper soup joints, beer parlors, fast food and eateries are deriving from such timeout? A visit to a grasscutter farm where many cages and hutches are devoted for rearing grasscutter in captivity should serve you a good menu of the profitability of the grasscutter business in the country today.

The grasscutter belongs to the mammalian order and the family of Rodentia and tyronomyidae respectively and is genetically more closely related to the porcupine than the rat. In Africa, grassscutter have very wide ranges but are absent or rare over much of South-West Africa, from the Sahara and from the arid Horn of Africa. They are distributed widely throughout Africa’s semi-humid regions and are found in many forests and savannas. Grasscutters occur in grassland or in wooden savanna throughout the humid and sub humid areas of Africa south of the Sahara. They do not inhabit rainforest, dry scrub, or desert, but colonize the road borders in forest regions.

They are robust animals measuring up to 60 cm (head and body), weighing 4-10kg, heavily built, with short stocky legs, a short rat-like tail, clothed with coarse, briskly and even spiny hairs, which look like short soft quills. General coat coloration is speckled brown or buffy above, paler on flanks and greyish or whitish below. They also may have yellow-brown bodies with whitish bellies.