The study was carried out on 250 dairy farmers from 25 villages of Varanasi District on random basis distributed evenly through pre-tested questionnaire and and on farm personal visit and observation to identify various existing housing management practices adopted by the dairy farmers for their livestock. Results revealed that majority of the respondents (73.2 %) had their separate animal house located nearby their own house. A total of 60.8% of the farmers did not have optimum size of animal house and 61.6% did not have optimum floor space for their animals. Head to head system was preferred by the majority (44.4 %) of the respondents, tail to tail in 21.0% and 34.6% respondents were adopting single line housing system for their dairy animals. As for the floor of the animal house 35.2, 30.0 and 34.0% respondents had pucca cemented floor, brick paved floor and earthen floor, respectively. Roof of the animal house was made up of asbestos sheets, galvanised iron sheet and thatched roof in case of 58.8%, 12.4% and 28.8 % of respondents respectively. Whereas, majority (66.4%) respondents were using pucca (cemented) manger for feeding their animals; only 38.8 % of the respondents had provision of pucca drainage system. Although 53.2% had fairly good ventilation, only only 31.6% maintained proper cleanliness in their animal house. It was concluded that, dairy farmers of Varanasi district were not having optimum houses and they were not adopting proper scientific housing management practices for their dairy animals. Accordingly, it was revealed that there is a lot of scope for increasing productivity of animals and thereby, income of farmers from dairy animals by improving the housing parameters and housing management practices of dairy animals.
A study on housing management practices of dairy animals in the Varanasi district of Eastern Uttar Pradesh
