Housing and Health Care Management Practices Followed by Gir Cattle Owners for Conservation of Gir Cattle in Ajmer District of Rajasthan

| The study was conducted in Ajmer district of Rajasthan, out of 10 tehsils of Ajmer district two tehsils i.e. Bhinay and Bijainagar were selected purposively. Further, four villages from each selected tehsil were identified. From each village 20 respondents were selected randomly. Thus, the entire sample consists of 160 respondents. The field survey was conducted to collect the first hand information on existing housing and health care management practices followed by Gir cattle owners in Ajmer district of Rajasthan.All the cattle keepers had kuccha floor in shed and 55 per cent kept their cattle inside dwelling house. About 64.37 per cent of the cattle owners used bedding material during winter season. About 68.13 % of the respondents had less ventilation provision in animal shed. Results indicated that 90.62 per cent of respondents vaccinate their animal against diseases. Majority 97.50 per cent controlled flies by smoke of waste grasses. Only 20.13 per cent of respondents practiced deworming measures. About 25 percent of the owners isolate the sick animals from healthy ones.


INTRODUCTION
L ivestock contributes a large portion of draft power for agriculture, with approximately half of the cattle population and 25 per cent of the buffalo population being used for work and cultivation along with that Livestock production in Rajasthan is pre-dominantly the endeavor of small holders. More than 80% rural families keep livestock in their households. Livestock farming is practiced traditionally mostly for agricultural operations. Contribution of animal husbandry sector to the GDP of the State has been estimated to be around 9.16 per cent. About 35 per cent of the income to small and marginal farmers comes from dairy and animal husbandry. In arid areas the contribution is as high as 50 per cent.So the study was conducted in Ajmer district of Rajasthan to find out the various existing housing and health care management practices followed by Gir cattle owners.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The study was conducted in Ajmer district of Rajasthan, out of 10 tehsils of Ajmer district two tehsils i.e. Bhinay and Bijainagar were selected purposively. Further, four villages from each selected tehsil were identified. From each village 20 respondents were selected randomly. Thus, the entire sample consists of 160 respondents. The data was collected through the personal interview. The existing housing and health care management practices were separately enlisted. The frequencies were obtained for different housing and health care management practices included in the study. The score of individual practice was converted

Advances in Animal and Veterinary Sciences
June 2018 | Volume 6 | Issue 6 | Page 266 into percentage.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The different housing and health care management practices followed by all the 160 Gir cattle owners were studied and each of them has been described in sub points as follows.

exiSting houSing management PraCtiCeS
Housing management is an important factor as housing helps to encourage the scientific feeding, proper disease control, better care and management along with prevention of animals from adverse climatic conditions and it maintains thermo neutral zone, in which animals are most productive. The result presented in Table 1 shows that majority (55 per cent) of the respondents kept their animals inside dwelling house, followed by 45 per cent of the of respondents who kept their animals separate from dwelling house. These findings recorded  Bainwad et al. (2007) but contrary to that reported by Malsawmdawngliana et al. (2016). Brick and lime/cement material were used by 70 per cent of respondents and brick in mud and thatch material is used by 18.13 and 11.27 per cent of respondents respectively in making of wall of sheds in the study area. Table 1 shows that 94.38 per cent of the respondents used manger for feeding and 64.38 per cent of the farmers had pucca manger followed by wooden 8.75 per cent and kuccha 26.87 per cent manger for feeding of animals. These findings are in close conformity with the earlier reports of Manohar et al. (2014). The present findings are not favoring the findings of Kishore et al. (2013), Sabapara et al. (2010) and Sinha et al. (2009) who reported that majority of feeding manger were kuccha in rural areas. All of the respondents practiced grooming of the cattle. About 64.37 per cent of the respondents used sand as bedding material during winter season. The present findings are similar with the earlier findings of Sabapara et al. (2010) and Sinha et al. (2009), who reported that in rural areas, 73.30 per cent farmers were using sugarcane leaves and 13.3 per cent were using straw as bedding material in winter.
Majority ( These results of the present study revealed that existing housing management practices are not according to the recommended management practices. There are some lacunas especially with respect to drainage channel, location of shed, defective feeding mangers and lack of scientific cattle shed.

exiSting health Care management PraCtiCeS
It was observed from the evaluation Table 2 Gupta et al. (2008) and Kunzru et al. (1994).

Advances in Animal and Veterinary Sciences
June 2018 | Volume 6 | Issue 6 | Page 267   The number of veterinary hospital (1) and stockman centre (1) existed in the surveyed villages was also very less. The remaining villages where veterinary facilities were not available, the minimum and maximum distance of nearest stockman centre/veterinary hospital were 7 to 30 km. According to the surveyed respondents, the availability of veterinary facilities and assistance in general was not sufficient. The per cent of respondents regarded veterinary facilities as good, satisfactory and poor were 9.37, 23.13 and 67.5 per cent, respectively.
The results showed that most of the respondents had not followed recommended health care management practices like vaccinating their animals, regular deworming. It is due to unawareness about importance of these practices. The scenario will change only when government provides adequate veterinary facilities and awareness regarding proper managemental practices in rural areas extensively.