Smallholder Farmers Cattle Husbandry Practices, Milk Production and Major Constraints in Telo District of Kafa Zone, Snnprsmallholder Farmers Cattle Husbandry Practices, Milk Production and Major Constraints in Telo District of Kafa Zone, Snnpr
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Date
2012-04-20
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Addis ababa Universty
Abstract
A cross sectional study on smallholder farmers cattle husbandry practices, milk production
and major constraints in Telo district was conducted from September 2011 to March 2012
with aim of assessing cattle husbandry practice, milk production and determining major
constraints of milk production from randomly sampled 156 households (33 from urban and
123 from rural). Information was collected using questionnaire survey, farm visit and group
discussion and analyzed using SPSS.version 16.0. Sixty two percent of household heads were
male. The average family size per household was 6.8 persons. 58% of household heads were
illiterate, and most of these were found in rural, the average of cattle herd size was 7.45,
which is significantly higher in rural milk production than in urban milk production. 99% of
cows were of indigenous breed. Cows (67.3%) and calves (66.9%) were housed sharing in
family house. The main source of feed were grazing on natural pasture on the grazing area of
individual owned 71.2%, combination of rented and individual owned 10.3% and only rented
18.6%. Seventy nine percent of respondents were producing crops like wheat, barley, teff,
maize, but the ones who supplementing their cattle with crop residues were only 13.7%.
About 67.3% of smallholders used water from river for their cattle. The reported disease
were Anthrax, black leg, parasite, bloating, cough. Most smallholders relay on traditional
healers or on their own skill to treat their sick animals. The primary objective of cattle
keeping in rural milk production was for traction, while in urban was for milk production.
Male calves suckle relatively longer period than female calves. The dung removed from
cattle's house was not put in use. The estimated average daily milk yield of local and cross
cow was 1.4 and 7.28 litters with an estimated LL of 8.47and 9.92 months, respectively.
Total milk produced per lactation was significantly higher in urban. There was no practice of
selling fresh milk in rural. Over all percentage of milk sold in study area was 19.2%, the
largest volume of milk produced in rural was processed, the major constraints in milk
production were shortage of grazing land, disease and low productivity. Crop and livestock
sectors were not complementing each other. Therefore, there should be resource control over.
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Keywords
Cattle, Husbandry, Major constraints, Milk production, Smallholder, Telo