No abstract

Marek's Disease (MD) is a highly contagious disease of poultry birds and readily spread from one bird to another. The MD Virus (MDV) has the tendency to survive in the litter for long periods of time and yet retaining its pathogenicity, thus creating outbreak at any point of time and causing huge losses to the poultry farmers. This property of MDV makes it utmost important to understand the disease dynamics of MD in the form of its epidemiology information allied to prevalence, outbreaks, morbidity, mortality and surveillance. Commercial poultry farming is totally based on the economic considerations and hence the mortality leads to huge economic losses, thus studying economic impact is also concerned with the dynamics of disease. The dynamism in serotypes of the virus makes the vaccines ineffective and leads to the frequent outbreak of disease. Therefore, the biological and molecular identification of the changing serotypes may lead to the effective control of the disease which will lead to economic stability among poultry farmers.

The present study was undertaken to examine the information needs of farmers using mKisan services with respect to different dairy husbandry practices. Results of weighted mean score revealed that farmers have higher information need about feeding and watering practices (2.20) followed by marketing of farm produce (2.19), breeding practices (2.18), health care practices (2.12), management practices (2.11) and fodder production and grass land management (2.10) with their information deficiency level of 73.3, 73.0, 72.7, 70.7, 70.3 and 69.9%, respectively. Major needs were related to recommended feeding practices of dairy cattle (2.38) and area specific mineral mixture (2.30). Information about procurement agencies in area (2.15) and day-to-day price variation of different farm produce (2.11) were also found of great concern in marketing of farm produce. Farmers have higher information need about estrus detection and time of insemination (2.30), selection of dairy cattle (2.21) and heifer management (2.18) in the domain of breeding. In health care practices, information about preventive measure against diseases (2.23) and vaccination schedule (2.17) was much needed. In management practices, information need for calf management (2.20) and clean milk production (2.19) was found to be highest. In fodder production and grass land management domain, information need about locally suitable fodder varieties (2.16) and management for fodder availability round the year (2.14) were at highest priority. Information need over different aspect of dairy husbandrypractices had significant variation across the different agro-climatic zones of Uttar Pradesh. North Eastern Zone and Bundelkhand Zone were found the highest information deficient zones in Uttar Pradesh.

No abstract

This study was conducted to ascertain the extent of adoption of improved buffalo husbandry practices and its relationship with the socio-economic characteristics of the dairy farmers in

The present study was purposively conducted in native tract of Gangatiri cattle in Uttar Pradesh. The information were collected from 108 respondents, who were rearing Gangatiri cattle for their livelihood. It was observed that most (53.70%) of the respondents practicing 6-10 hrs grazing of their Gangatiri herd. All the farmers were providing natural service to cows in estrus, maximum number of them (54.63%) between 12 to 16 hrs after detection of estrus and 53.70 per cent of them with bulls available in village surroundings. Maximum number of respondents (35.20%) initially used indigenous knowledge for disease treatment and after that consulted with veterinary doctor/ stockman. Major diseases prevelant in the area include FMD, HS, BQ and mastitis. Gangatiri cows were found to be more resistance to the diseases and heat tolerant as compared to crossbred cattle. Majority (81.48%) of respondents kept their cattle on kachcha floor in good sanitary conditions. About 70.37% respondents made cattle shed as a part of their houses. Majority (59.25 %) of the cattle owners were using knuckling method of milking, which may be a cause of mastitis in animals. It can be concluded that there is need of awareness programmes on scientific cattle rearing practices and interventions like supply of semen of bulls of high genetic merit under AI programme or bulls of good genetic merit for natural breeding, adequate grazing land and inputs for health management practices are needed to make the Gangatiri cattle rearing more beneficial.

No abstract

The present study was undertaken to assess the production and reproduction performance of dairy animals among the farmers using mKisan services in different agro-climatic zones of Uttar Pradesh. A total of 225 farmers (45 each from five agro-climatic zones of UP) with their 301 buffaloes, 235 crossbred cows and 304 indigenous cows were considered. The study revealed that average daily milk yield, lactation length, lactation milk yield, peak milk yield, dry period, age at first calving, service period, services/ conception and calving interval for buffaloes were 5.7±0.6 L/day, 298±20 days, 1746.4±94 L, 8.7±0.5 L, 215±21 days, 1295±104 days, 174±15 days, 2.1±0.3 and 446±42 days, respectively, for crossbred cows, 7.2±0.5 L/day, 280±21 days, 2200.4±104 L, 11.0±0.4 L, 232±20 days, 1175±111 days, 179±18 days, 2.6±0.4 and 439±53 days, respectively and for indigenous cows, 3.8±0.4 L/ day, 193±18 days, 1180.8±83 L, 5.9±0.3 L, 165±15 days, 1548±94 days, 261±14 days, 2.5±0.5 and 314±43 days, respectively. The production and reproduction performance of dairy animals of Western zone and Mid-Western zone was significantly higher than Central Plain zone, North Eastern zone and Bundelkhand zone. Experience in livestock farming, accessibility of information sources, social relation & participation and herd size were positively and significantly correlated (0.167–0.359) with performance of dairy animals at household level. Whereas knowledge about dairy farming and message utilization index were having highly significant and positive relation (0.548, 0.511) with performance of dairy animals at household level.