Year: 2015 | Month: June | Volume 5 | Issue 2
Survey of Calf Rearing Practices Followed at Rural Dairy Farms in Surat District
Abstract:
A field survey was conducted purposively in Surat district of Gujrat to ascertain the calf rearing management practices followed by rural dairy animal owners during March, 2013 to January, 2014. Data were collected from randomly selected 300 dairy animal owners through personal interview with the help of pre-tested structured schedule from five talukas selected at random. The present study revealed that majority (95.33%) of the respondents attended calving and cleaned the calves soon after parturition. Majority (96.33%) of respondents did not practice ligation, cutting and disinfection of the naval cord and it was left to fall off itself naturally. Only 35.05% of the respondents fed colostrum to new born calf within one hour of birth. Majority (58.67%) of the respondents followed weaning practices at the age of three months and 23.33% of the respondents allowed calves to suckle their dams till lactation ceased. Majority (82.33%) of the respondents provided green fodders from two months of age and only 2.67% of the respondents provided calf starter to the calves. Only 37% of the respondents followed dehorning during 3-4 week of age of their calves, 17% of respondents practiced castration of male calves, 48.67% of the respondents gave anthelmetics to the calves regularly and 12.33% of the respondents provided jacketing as well as bedding in order to protect their calves from cold during winter season.
© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
Print This Article Email This Article to Your Friend
