Study of Feeding Practices of Dairy Animals in Small Holder Production System in Western U.P

Abstract

Present study was carried out in five districts of western Uttar Pradesh. The related information was collected from 100 dairy farmers having land holding up to 5 acres were selected randomly from 5 districts of Western Uttar Pradesh namely Meerut, Rampur, Bulandshahar, Shahjahanpur and Bareilly. It was observed that majority of dairy farmers in urban area had nuclear family followed by joint family 68 and 32%. In rural areas, the family was mostly of joint type than nuclear type 66 and 34%, obtained in urban areas most of the dairy farmers were educated with majority having passed middle class and high school examination. In rural areas, the farmers were less educated with 36% were either illiterate or passed up to primary level, 66% of dairy farmers in urban area belonged to backward caste followed by scheduled caste 26.0%, other caste 8.0%. In rural areas, 80% of dairy farmers belonged of backward caste rest were of other caste and overall percentage, the number of respondents from young, middle and old age group were 20.0, 43.0 and 37.0% respectively, in the study area. Majority of dairy farmers having good experience in dairy farming 68 and 86%, in overall, the dairy farmers were having moderate income, followed by low and high income group 48, 42 and 12 % respectively, majority of dairy farmers 64.0 and 66.0% informed that they had fed colostrum to calves l-2 hours after calving followed by immediately after calving 16.0 and 4.0% and 20.0, 30.0% of dairy farmers fed after two hours of calving, respectively, most of the farmers fed concentrate to their animals, majority of dairy farmers 74.0 and 50.0% fed both dry and green roughages together to their animals, all the respondents providing clean drinking water to their animals the sources of drinking water is only tube well, overall, most of the dairy farmers were practicing chaffing 89.0% and 11.0% of dairy farmers fed un-chaffed fodder to animals in the study area and hay making was practiced by only 28.0 per cent of urban farmers, whereas, majority 52.0% of rural farmers followed the hay making. 82.0%, of respondents followed extra concentrate feeding during advanced pregnancy while only 18.0% did not provided extra concentrate to their animals, majority 90.0% of dairy farmers practiced feeding of extra concentrate during early lactation and only 10.0 % of dairy farmers did not follow the practice in the study areas. Majority of dairy farmers in urban and rural areas provided mineral mixture supplementation to their animals 94.0 and 70.0%, respectively, most of dairy farmers used artificial insemination for conceiving their animals.