CHALLENGES AND GOOD MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN GOAT FARMING

CHALLENGES AND GOOD MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN GOAT FARMING

Dr Annarao¹, Dr Indrale Utpala² and Dr Shantkumar³

1. Senior Veterinary Officer, VH Kalagi Tq: Kalagi Dist: Kalaburagi
2. Senior Veterinary Officer, VD Mangalagi Tq: Kalagi Dist: Kalaburagi
3. Senior Veterinary Officer, VD Kallur Tq: Humnabad Dist: Bidar

Department of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Services,

                                      Karnataka State, India 

Goat is one among early domesticated animal, commonly known as poor man’s Cow in India, due to its immense contribution to the financial needs of marginal farmers. Goat is multifunctional animal which play an important role in upliftment of rural landless farmers and many a times referred as moving ATM (Any time money).  According to 20^th Livestock Census Report-2019 Govt of India, India has 148.88 million of goats, 5^th highest population in the world. There was an increase in 10.14 per cent raise in goat population compared to previous Livestock Census Report-2012. This indicates that there is progressive growth of goat population and goat farming in India. Goat contributes 27.8 % of total Livestock population of India. Rajasthan state has highest goat population in India. Goat farming has tremendous potential in employment generation and poverty reduction. Goat farming enhances the employment in rural area. Goat rearing has proved as the back bone of small and landless farmer economy. Further goat husbandry acting as insurance against the crop failure in Agriculture mixed farming practices (Rahane and Shelke, 2020).

Demand for goat meat is increasing with the rise in human population. Goat acts as regenerator of vegetation through dispersal of seeds in its droppings and aids in vegetative propagation through browsing. Indigenous goats were 2-5 times more economical compared to indigenous sheep farming when rearing practiced in free range grazing. Goats will produce more milk and meat production per unit of live body weight compared to buffalo, camel and sheep (Vihan, 2010).

Goats can adopt to wide variety of Agro-climatic conditions ranging from arid dry to cold arid to hot humid, they can thrive well with poor quality roughages. Goat is a multipurpose animal that produces milk, meat, fiber, kid and manure. It is also called as foster mother of man because of its milk which is highly nutritious, easily digestible and less allergic to humans compared to other livestock species. Being small sized friendly animal, goat can be easily reared by the women and children. Four goats can be maintained at the cost of maintenance of one cow. Chevon has no religious taboo and it has got high demand from all community, has less fat and more protein. The droppings and urine of goat is rich source of nitrogen, potash and phosphorus than cow dung. Goats are excellent experiment animals for physiological and bio medical research (Jagadish Prasad, 2010).

India produces 195 MMT of goat milk, which is 22% of Global production and per capita availability of goat milk is 375 Grams per day (Abhijeet Banerjee, 2020). Goat milk has very high demand from consumers and goat milk used in pharmacological industries. India is largest exporters of sheep and goat meat to the world. The country has exported 7,050.55 MT of sheep and goat meat to the world worth of Rs. 329.96 Crores of INRs (APEDA Report, 2021).

Challenges in goat farming

1. Parasitic infestation

Being a tropical country parasitic infestation is the primary cause for high morbidity and mortality. External parasites includes tick, lice, flea and mange infestation causes emaciation, restlessness, anaemia, allergic signs on skin, rough hair coat, pruritis and weakness. High infestation often ends with death due to anaemia and hypoglycaemia. Endoparasitic infection will causes diarrhoea, emaciation, weakness, anaemia and death in chronic cases. Poor housing sanitization, overcrowding, poor veterinary care, improper dosage of medication, poor extension activity and awareness on parasitic infestation to farmers, high rain fall and humidity, are the reasons for high parasitic infestation in India. Due to improper anthelmintic agent, dosage, route and stage of parasite usage causing anthelmintic resistance problem in field conditions causing more and more losses to farmers.

2. Diseases out break

The diseases like foot rot, mixed respiratory infection, diarrhoea, enterotoxaemia, Orf are causing high morbidity and mortality in goats causing severe economical losses in terms of treatment and medication cost, reduced growth and body weight, abortion in female goats, emaciation, chronic anorexia, lameness, weakness and death will be outcomes of infections. Due to improper medication, antibiotic resistance, frequent usage of antibiotics with under dosage or over dosage will aggravates the condition. Respiratory infection and foot rot are now not responding to single antibiotics. Abortion storm is also a major health issue in goats. Abortions will causes huge economical losses in goat farming.

3. Nutritional disorders

Deficiency of various vitamins and minerals, poor plane of nutrition, malnutrition, poor feeding practices, lack of concentrates supplementation causes debility, weakness, chronic anorexia and death in extreme cases.

4. High kid mortality

Due to poor plane of nutrition in pregnancy, ongoing parasitic infestation, poor birth weight, poor feeding of colostrum, twins and triplet kids compete for milk, tapeworm infestation, Coccidiosis, Colibacillosis, hypothermia due to hypoglycaemia, tick and flea infestation  are the reasons for high kid mortality rate in the farm causes severe economical loss in the farm.

5. Breeding facility

No proper breeding policy, Absence of high profile cross breeding programme, and lack of artificial insemination facility with high productive traits under field condition. Inbreeding and indiscriminate breeding practices often leads to poor productivity.

6. Lack of grazing lands

Due to urbanization, industrialization availability of grazing land is the biggest issue in goat farming. Cost of feed and fodder increasing day by day. This causes increase in input cost.

7. Predator attack in grazing land

Goats are docile animals, they are easily attacked by the predator animals like wolf, Hyena, dog and carnivores animals.

8. Highly unorganized market

Traditional non scientific type market, poor market value is major draw backs in marketing sector. Till today most of the rural markets goats will be sold based on number of heads not on body weight and one more interesting fact is that butchers prefer to purchase non-descript goats compared to well recognized breeds. Exploitation by middle man is one more problem in marketing.

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9. Feed and water scarcity

Due to improper rain falling, food, horticulture and commercial crop attraction, getting sufficient fodder for the goats is also a challenge under field condition. Water deficit is also a limitation factor in goat rearing. Fodder grown on deficit land will also deficit in nutrients causes deficiency disorders.

10. Adverse climate

Very high rain fall and relative humidity in Manson, high chill in winter, heat waves and higher temperature will affects the normal physiology and production in goats. Hypothermia is one of the cause for kid mortality whereas high temperature has deleterious effect on productive and reproductive performance on goats.

11. Lack of veterinary care at farmer door step

Lack of veterinary facilities in the field condition is the major drawback for the health care issues. Deworming and vaccination prior to disease outbreak will be the key for control of disease outbreak in goat farming. After the feed health is the key component in goat farming. Poor health care often causes severe economical losses.

12. Lack of proper training

Goat farmers and labours need to undergo scientific method of rearing of goats. Under field conditions there is lack of awareness of farmers on scientific rearing leads to poor management and production causes lower economical gains. Scientific knowledge is very much important in goat farming for better output.

13. Goat shed

Initial goat shed construction is also a high investment activity. Goat shed will not makes any returns. Initial high investment on shed will be a limitation factor in goat farming.

14. Insurance

Insurance companies will not cover goats under normal circumstances, they will cover insurance only in cases of Bank loans. So availability of insurance is also a limiting factor.

15. Lack of capital and supporting system

There is no agency to assist capital investment in goat farming and supporting in terms of technical inputs like selection of healthy goats, feed supply, veterinary care and other inputs.

Good management practices in goat farming

Intensive study on a particular locality about climate, feed and fodder, market on that area on goat farming. Purchase high quality, healthy parental stock. Regular faecal sample examination and deworming based on the faecal sample report. Isolation and prompt treatment of sick animals. Regular health check up, antibiotics sensitivity test for pneumonia, foot rot and mastitis like complex diseases. Farm hygiene and sanitization. Bio-security measures in the farm. Rotational grazing pattern on pastures. Seasonal management practices to reduce the stress of climatic variation. Don’t invest more amount on goat shed. All goats should have identification tags, record should be maintained and insurance is must. Goats should be housed separately in order to avoid spread of disease from adult goats to young ones and pregnant goats should be housed separately. Don’t mix goats of different farms in grazing. Don’t mix vaccinated and non-vaccinated goats. Don’t mix newly brought goats with already existed goats. Don’t mix goats with other species of animals. During disease outbreak goat markets should be closed. Insects acts as vectors for many diseases, so control of insects and external parasites should be done regularly in the farm. Kids should be regularly examined for the ecto and endo parasitic infestation. Weak kids should be given extra care and milk from other goats. Based on goat population separate goat market should be established to sale on live body weight. Goat milk has high demand in cities, so milking, packing and marketing should be done as like milk federations of cow and buffaloes.  Veterinary care should be made available all the time to assist the health problems. Never advice medications to goats without the consultation of veterinarian. Recently dog bites and dog related deaths are more reporting in rural areas, theft cases are also reporting from the places which are near highways, these type of situations should be monitored before loss occurs. Lightning is one more natural calamity to sheep and goat, so avoid grazing during cloudy days. Govt farms should be established at district level for the maintenance of locally adopted breed of goats as a stock source for the farmers with scientific type of rearing training with practical exposure of rearing. Regular changing of bucks should be made in the farm to avoid the inbreeding problems. Artificial insemination should be made available in village level. Artificial insemination will reduce the risk of transmission of veneral diseases and abortion. Proper disposal of goat droppings will reduce the soil born infections. Breeding policy should be made to enhance the cross breeding for the fast growth and body weight traits. Regular supplementation of mineral mixture provides optimum growth and production. Balanced ration should be given based on the physiological requirement. Keeping of trained dogs can reduce the risk of predators on grazing land.

CONCLUSION

Goat farming is major economical activity for the landless labours and small farmers in rural areas, due to poor managemental practices and non-scientific rearing practices lot of challenges faced by the farmers. Enlisting the challenges and by adopting the good management practices farmers can get good income by goat farming in rural areas by encashing the high demand for goat milk, meat and manure. Good management practices will enhance the production in the farm.

References

1. APEDA Reports, 2021
2. B 2020. Goat milk market: Understanding the present and future prospects.www.krishijagaran.com
3. JAGADISH, P., 2010. Goat, Sheep and Pig Production and Management. 4^th, Kalyani Publishers., pp: 1-160
4. JOHN MATTHEWS., 2016. Diseases of the Goat. 4^th Wiley Blackwell Publishers., pp:1-395
5. Livestock census Report 2019 dhad.gov.in
6. MSD Veterinary manual
7. PUGH, D. G., and ANBAIRD., 2012. Sheep and Goat Medicine. Second Edition. Penny Rudolph Publications., pp:1-640
8. RAHANE, A. S., and SHELKE, R. D., 2020. Economics of goat rearing business in Ahamad Nagar district of Maharashtra. M. Sc Thesis, VNMVK Parbhani, Maharashtra, India
9. TRUPTI S K and ANNARAO. 2021.Advantages and challenges in goat farming epashupalan.com
10. VIHAN, V. S., 2010. Diseases of Small Ruminant. 1^st Satish Serial Publishing House., pp: 1-399

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