​Study on Housing Management Practices Followed by Dairy Farmers in Northern Telangana State of India

Abstract

Background: Adequate housing is essential for wellbeing and welfare of any kind of livestock, which keeps them comfort and healthy thereby increases production and reproduction performance by exploiting their fullest genetic potential. As scanty information available on farmers practices on animal housing, the present study was undertaken to assess housing management practices followed by dairy farmers in Northern Telangana state of India. Methods: Data were collected from randomly selected 240 dairy farmers from 24 villages of 8 mandals from 4 districts. A pretested semi-structured questionnaire in precise language was employed for collecting data through interview and face to face discussion with the dairy farmers duly avoiding ambiguous, dichotomous and non-variant items for proper interpretation. Result: Majority (59.58%) respondents kept animals in kutcha houses and 74.58% sheds located to nearby their dwellings. Majority (50.42%) of the sheds were in east-west direction and 82.08% of the respondents followed single line system of housing. Majority 91.25, 95.42, 84.16, 67.92 and 69.58% of the respondents protected animals against extreme weather conditions, maintained cleanliness, had earthen floor, backward slope in the floor and wooden pillars, respectively. Majority of animal houses had thatched roof (50.42%) and without walls (82.08%) and majority of them (89.58%) provided mangers but only 11.25% had pucca type mangers. Only a few respondents (14.58%) provided pucca drainage system and most of the farmers (58.75%) had manure pit adjacent to their animal houses. The study concludes that, the dairy farmers of the study area are well aware of advantages of keeping animals in hygienic animal houses under adverse tropical climatic conditions of the study area and providing them periodical trainings and visits to modern organised dairy farms helps them to optimize productivity from dairy animals.