English

O O Adewumi,D A Adegbemile,O A Lawal Adebowale

doi:10.5897/ijlp2015.0252

Abstract

The nutritional intake of the rural households, which is largely characterised by carbohydrates at the expense of protein intake, has the potentials of being improved through the consumption of sheep and goats’ milk. With the widespread of small ruminant keeping by rural households in most developing countries, the study embarked on investigation of possible acceptability of sheep and goats’ milk for consumption by farm families in selected rural communities of Ogun State. With the use of interview guide to obtain information from the conveniently selected 150 rural farm families, the results showed that 72% of them reared goats, keeping between 6 and 10 of the animal; 84% consumed wara (local cheese) as milk product from cow’s milk; and 20% occasionally consumed milk either in evaporated and/or powdered forms. Although, none of the rural farm families ever consumed sheep and goats’ milk basically because it was hardly available in the Nigerian market in any form, 57.3% of them slightly accepted to consume the small ruminant’s milk. Chi-square test of the relationship between farm families’ socioeconomic characteristic; their milk consumption pattern and their probable acceptability of sheep and goats’ milk for consumption showed no significant relationship. The study concluded that the rural farm families had a slight potential of accepting the small ruminants’ milk for consumption and thus recommended that the farm families should be educated and trained on technical exploration of the small ruminants’ milk for production and consumption.   Key words: Sheep and goats’ milk, probable acceptability, consumption, rural farm families, Ogun State.

Highlights

Milk, which is one of the primary products of ruminant animals, constitutes essential diets of mankind, given its high nutritional value (Gulati et al, 2000; Bhat and Bhat, 2011)
Sheep and goats are though generally reared for meat production in Nigeria (Zahradeen et al, 2009), the small ruminants have the added advantage of providing the rural farm families with milk for consumption (Malau-Aduli et al, 2004)
Stimulation of the animals’ milk increment, as expressed by James (2000, 2009), mostly takes place at the third week of lactation. This submission depicts that the Nigerian rural farm families could readily harness the milk production potentials of their small ruminants for milk production and consumption; and regular consumption of such milk would improve the nutritional status of their food intake

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Milk, which is one of the primary products of ruminant animals, constitutes essential diets of mankind, given its high nutritional value (Gulati et al, 2000; Bhat and Bhat, 2011). In the developing or third world countries, of which Nigeria is one, milk consumption is considered a luxury and as such the ruminant’s product is largely consumed by the affluent households in the country. Sheep and goats are though generally reared for meat production in Nigeria (Zahradeen et al, 2009), the small ruminants have the added advantage of providing the rural farm families with milk for consumption (Malau-Aduli et al, 2004). Stimulation of the animals’ milk increment, as expressed by James (2000, 2009), mostly takes place at the third week of lactation This submission depicts that the Nigerian rural farm families could readily harness the milk production potentials of their small ruminants for milk production and consumption; and regular consumption of such milk would improve the nutritional status of their food intake. H02: Rural farm families’ milk consumption pattern is not significantly associated with their probable acceptability of the small ruminants’ milk for consumption

METHODOLOGY

Sampling procedure

AND DISCUSSION

Findings

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION