Rathi, DeepakBhati, Mukesh Kumar2016-07-132016-07-132014http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/68703ABSTRACT The present investigation entitled “An Economic Analysis of Sheep Rearing in Bikaner District of Rajasthan” was conducted at Kolayat tehsil of Bikaner district in Rajasthan. For collecting information, 100 sheep rearing farmers were interviewed, who were selected randomly from 5 villages of the tehsil.All the sample respondents were classified into three groups as small (up to 20 sheep), medium (21 to 40 sheep) and large (more than 40 sheep) rearers. Data on various aspects were collected from 100 sheep rearers constituting 21 small, 33 medium and 46 large sheep rearers. Major analytical tools employed in the study were Tabular analysis, Growth rate analysis, financial analysis, stochastic frontier production function and Mean score ranking technique. The study revealed that there was negative growth in the population of sheep in Bikaner district during the census period 1982 to 2007. The literacy rate of the household head was around 42per cent and the average land holding was 3.19 ha. with only one seventh of area under irrigation. The average flock size was 48 and the cost incurred in sheep rearing was constituted of interest on fixed capital (32per cent), hired labour cost (27.90per cent), feed & fodder cost (12.79per cent) and other cost including veterinary, marketing and shearing cost. The gross income from the sheep rearing was constituted by sale of sheep (84.41per cent), wool (8.12per cent), dead sheep/skin (4.43per cent) and manure (3.04per cent). It is observed that if the expenditure on sheep rearing was calculated including imputed value of family labour then the expenditure on sheep rearing was exceeded the returns. On the other hand if the imputed value of family labour was ignored the rearing cost per sheep found to be around ₹515 per year and decrease with increase in the size of (flock) categories of rearers. The corresponding NPV, B:C ratio, IRR and Payback period was reported to be ₹25263.47, 1.19, 26.71per cent and 2.11 years. NPV and IRR increases with increase in size of categories of rearers while BCR and PBP decrease with increase in size of categories of rearer. The overall average economic efficiency has been found to be 91.7 percent, indicating that the returns could be improved by another 8.3 per cent with the present resourceuselevel. More than 55per centof the farmers were found to be distributed in the economic efficiency range of 85-95 per cent. The resource-poor farmers have been observed to realize higher economicefficiency than their rich counterparts. The major factor responsible for inducing improvement inefficiency has been identified as membership in farmer’s organizations, which probably provides thembetter access to technical knowledge and improves their bargaining power. The constraints faced by sheep rearers were divided into four categories viz. Technical, Input, Institutional and Social constraints. The major constraints faced by the farmers were the poor availability of superior quality breeding rams and inadequate knowledge on the disease management in the technical side; fodder scarcity and high price of feed as well as unavailability of proper medicine in the input side; low wool price and lack of market infrastructure on the institutional side and low literacy and impaired access to extension facility on the social side. Another serious problem in the study area was the lack of grazing land and unavailability of green fodder and attack of wild animals on sheep and lambs during grazing.enlivestock, costs, economics, manpower, biological phenomena, animal population, biological development, markets, land resources, marketingThesis