Goat Husbandry Practices followed by Farmers in the Vicinity of Ranthambore Tiger Reserve, India

Abstract

The study was performed among 30 villages near the Ranthambore Tiger Reserve, with 12 livetsock reares chosen from each village, thus making 360 total respondents who were exposed to a structured interview schedule. The study explored that only 60 farmers were rearing goats as a source of their livelihood. Goat keepers followed the nuclear family hence average household size and herd size of goat were around 4 and 14 per household, respectively. Existing goat practices were grouped in four categories; breeding, feeding, health care, and management practices. Inbreeding, common signs of estrus, mating time after heat detection etc. were common practices adopted by the respondents. Among feeding practices farmers adopted practices such as allowing the kid to suckle teats of his mother, off ering milk at the rate of 10 per cent of body weight, and stall feeding followed by grazing up to 8 hours. Farmers were quite aware of health care practices but farmers were not having a good house structure for their animals and were not good at keeping records of their animals. Age, family size, family education ststus, social participation, community cohesiveness and mass media exporew were signifi cant for the followed of goat husbandry practices