Problems perceived by the livestock owner regarding rearing of Kankrej cow

Abstract

Dairy farming has been part of agriculture for thousands of years. Historically, it has been one part of small, diverse farms. Gujarat is the leading state in milk production and its AMUL pattern of cooperative was adopted in the world. The unique characteristics of kankrej cow like resistant to tick fever, heat stress, very little incidence of contagious abortion and tuberculosis madea very popular one among these countries. Three talukas of Banaskantha District viz, Deesa, Lakhani and Deoder and three talukas of Patan District viz.; Radhanpur, Sami and Harij were selected purposively having highest population of Kankrej cow and breed is popular in the study area. Three villages from each taluka were selected randomly. Further ten farmers having kankrej cow from each village were selected randomly, consist a sample of 180 farmers for the study. Maximum number of livestock owner were middle to old aged, literate, having more than 5 members in family, small to medium land holding, small to medium herd size, having milking Kankrej cow, agriculture as a primary occupation, sources of information for Animal Husbandry practices were milk cooperative society as a formal source, friends/relatives/neighbor/progressive farmers as an informal sources and television/ newspaper/krushimahotsav as a mass media. More than ninety per cent livestock owner were members in milk cooperative society, having medium milk yield (3.01 to 39.15 liter/day) of herd kept by him, had less than 0.50 hectare land under forage crops. The major problem perceived by the livestock owner in rearing of kankrej cow were; non availability of high pedigree bull, lack of knowledge about clean milk production, low conception rate through A.I, lack of scientific management practices and more problem related to mastitis.