A STUDY ON MANAGEMENT PRACTICES AND CONSTRAINTS OF GOAT REARING FARMERS IN MAHABUBNAGAR DISTRICT OF TELANGANA STATE
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Date
2021-10-08
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PVNRTVU, HYDERABAD
Abstract
The present study was taken up to focus on socio economic characteristic, management practices followed and various constraints faced by the goat rearing farmers in MahabubnagarDistrict, Telangana. The data was collected from 250 goat keepers of five mandals, five villages from each mandal and ten framers from each village purposively as the area is highly populated. The data was collected through personal interview with the help of structured interview schedule prepared for this purpose.
Majority of the (42.00 %) goat keepers belongs to old and middle age group followed by young age (14.80%). Most of the goat keepers were illiterate (83.20%), they do not posses any education and followed by primary education (8.80%), secondary education (2.4%), higher secondary (4.8%) and very few are graduate and above (0.80%). Majority of the goat keepers belongs to Backward Class (77.20%).The average family size of the goat keepers was 5 members. 72 per cent of the goat keepers possess medium size family followed by small (20.80%) and large (7.20%) families. The land holding pattern among the goat keepers in the study area was, most of farmers were marginal farmers, possess up to 1.00 hectare land followed by small farmers (1-2ha.), medium farmers (2-4 ha.) and no farmers were found in large farmers category.
The goat keepers in the study area had low (51.20%) and medium (41.20%) level of annual income, whereas, 7.00% of them had high level annual income. The source of income of the respondent was from agriculture and goat rearing. The average flock size of the goat was 24 goats. The reason for this might be due to lack of grazing land and non-availability of infrastructure facility. 50.60 per cent of the goat keepers were using medium sources of information, whereas, 31.60 and 8.80 per cent of the goat keepers were using low and high sources of information respectively.
Most of the (72.40%) goat keepers were under low level of scientific orientation, whereas, 25.50 per cent of the respondent appeared in medium and 2.40 per cent of them are at high level of scientific orientation. 78.40 per cent of the goat keepers had low level of
social participation, while 20.80 per cent medium level and negligible per cent (0.80%) had high level of social participation.More number of goat keepers in the study area (83.60 per cent) had low, up to 10 years of goat keeping experience.
Majority of the goat keepers had medium level of knowledge with adoption on recommended goat rearing practices. Further 78.0 and 20.80 per cent of the goat keepers posses complete and partial knowledge about dual purpose breads, 70.00 and 28.0 per cent had the complete and partial knowledge regarding meat purpose breeds respectively. Whereas, 55.00 per cent of the goat keepers adopted management of dual purpose and meat purpose breeds completely, 31.60 and 42.80 per cent had adopted partially. 99.60 per cent goat rearers had complete knowledge of extensive system of rearing and only 20.80, 20.40 per cent had the partial knowledge about semi-stall and stall feeding respectively. In respect of adoption 97.6% of the goat keepers following grazing, while, 11.60 per cent adopted semi stall feeding and almost none of the goat keepers following stall feeding practices. Majority of the goat keepers were not having the knowledge nor adoption about cultivation of forage crops.
98.00 percent of goat keepers were knowing about the proper selection of male and female for breeding, 76.00 per cent had the knowledge on selection of doe and buck for twining and triplets, 64.4 and 32.00 per cent of the farmer maintaining sex ratio completely and partially, 98.0 percent of the goat keepers had knowledge of using the bucks at the age of 2-5 years for breeding purpose and more than 60.0 percent of the goat keepers having knowledge of signs of oestrus, whereas, the adoption level on breeding management was 60.00 and 14.00 per cent completely and partially. Majority (98.0%) of the goat keepers had the knowledge about pregnancy management such as drying of pregnant does, not to break the water bag, taking help of veterinarian in case of dystokia, expulsion of placenta as a completion of act of kidding and don’t pull out the placenta by force. The similar activity was adopted by 58.00 per cent of the goat keepers.
Knowledge of kid management was possessed by 58.40 per cent against 90.00 per cent of the goat keepers adopted clearing of mucus membrane from natural orifices and allow the mother to lick new born (54.60%). Whereas, only 18.40 per cent of goat keepers having knowledge about cutting of navel cord with sterilized blade and application of tincture iodine with the adoption level of 2.80 %. 34.0 per cent goat rearers don’t have knowledge to offer colostrum of one doe to kids of other doe and the adoption rate was 17.20 per cent partially and 9.60 per cent completely. 40 per cent of the goat keepers possess knowledge about feeding of cow milk if necessary. 0.80 per cent of the goat keepers had complete and partial knowledge about castration of male kids before one month of age for fattening purpose. Whereas,74.40 per cent of goat keepers were not adopted feeding of cow milk to kids if necessary with partial adoption of 21.60%.
About 82.40 per cent of goat keepers knew about quantity of milk feed up to 15 days to the kids as per the standard, while, 68.80 per cent not adopted. 78.0 per cent of the farmers don’t have the knowledge and adoption about starting of fodder feeding from 1 month onwords, similarly 98.40 per cent lacking knowledge (99.20%) about feeding concentrates along with fodder. Most of the goat keepers does not have knowledge and adoption about scientific feeding to the bucks. The adoption and knowledge level on vaccination practices of goat farmers were very poor in the study area, whereas, more than 96% of goat keepers had knowledge of deworming and tick control with adoption level of above 36.00% and 50.80% respectively. 22.40, 21.20 and 28.80 per cent of goat keepers had knowledge about vaccination against enterotoxaemia, hemorrhagic septicaemia and blue tongue diseases respectively, while 74.00 per cent of goat keepers possess knowledge about vaccination against PPR. Among the goat keepers 99.00 per cent had complete knowledge about selection of goat whereas, most of the goat keepers (40.62%) not adopted criteria to be taken for selection. Most the goat keepers had knowledge about marketing of goats, whereas, 55.20 per cent shows partial knowledge on fixation of market price of goat according to the live weight (40.60 % complete adoption), knowledge on sale of bucks at the age of 6-8 months, dispose of animals having diseases and breeding problems and sale of maximum animals when there was huge demand were 92.00%, 91.20% and 75.20% respectively with 50 per cent adoption.
80.00 per cent of goat keepers were not aware about credit availability and adoption of facility (98.00%). 98.00 per cent of goat keepers were not knowing about the goat insurance and insurance companies. One third of the goat keepers were not having the knowledge about the maintenance of goat records viz. date of birth, weight of kids, vaccination, diseases and milk yield etc. accordingly the adoption level was poor (98.80%) on this activity.
The relationship between age, education land holding and annual income of the goat keepers with their knowledge level on goat management practice was non significant, whereas, positive and highly significant relationship was observed between knowledge level and family size (0.3125), source of information (0.4752), social participation (0.6356), scientific orientation (0.1856) and goat keeping experience (0.4524) at one per cent level and flock size (0.1466) at 5 per cent.
The non significant relationship between age (0.0117), family size (-0.115), education (0.0211), land holding (0.04370), flock size and annual income (-0.1253) with adoption of approved goat management practices was observed.
100% of the farmers were meeting their financial crisis through the sale of goat, 92.8 percent meeting family health requirement, about 88.0percent managing their family and children education, 61.2 percent expressed that they are treated respectively from society and family, they are also involving in all the programmes of the society but there was no improvement in agriculture incomes as the income from goat rearing was utilized for agriculture.
Majority of the goat rearers (99.2%) revealed that non availability of support from Government organization for the rearing of goats was the major constraints, followed by lack of credit facility (98.4%), lack of grazing facility (88.4%), lack of knowledge about feeding of goats as per their needs (86.0%), lack of proper marketing facilities for sale of goats (71.6%) were ranked from 1-7, whereas, non availability of improved prolific breed of goat (68.8%), high mortality of kids and adult animals due to diseases (62.4%), involvement of middle man in the marketing of goats (61.2%), lack of breeding buck and use of breeding buck (51.60%), non availability of veterinary facility within the reach (50.40%) and encounter of abortion in the pregnant animal (31.2%) were prioritized as 7th,8th,9th,10th,11th and 12th ranks respectively.
Since the area taken for investigation falls under semi arid zone, it required special attention to develop the fallow land, community and waste land for the grazing purpose. Similarly the attention must be paid towards cultivation of suitable fodder varieties to the area, creation of awareness on nutritional requirement and feeding of balanced diets to the goats, breeding management and health management etc. There is a need to train the goat farmers how to get finance from different organization and support by the government to reduce complications in goat rearing and marketing.
Key words: Goat farming, Management, Constraints and Socio- economics.