MVSc

Attappady is an important tribal settlement area of Kerala. The tribes of Attappady belong to three communities namely Irula, Muduga, and Kurumba. They were traditionally engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry activities. This study was conducted to make an intensive appraisal of the livestock production system of Attappady and to identify possible areas of scientific intervention so as to improve its efficiency.

As per the survey findings, more than sixty percent of the tribal farmers were middle aged. Majority of the tribal farmers were illiterate and considered labour as their primary occupation. The average herd size of cattle and goat among the tribes in Attappady were found to be 3.76 and 5.83 respectively.

Most of the tribal farmers provided housing facility to their animals during night time only. The tribal farmers entirely depended on grazing and locally available feed resources for feeding their animals. Concentrate feeding was practiced by only a quarter of the farmers. Few of them were cultivated fodder and fed straw to animals. These farmers were not concerned about watering their animals.

The animals were non-descriptive type mostly and indiscriminate breeding was common. The farmers detected heat by observing the bellowing sign. Only few of them provided special care to pregnant and young animals. Most of them did not cut the navel cord after birth but the practice of colustrum feeding was quite common. Majority allowed calves to suckle milk after milking the animals completely.

The tribal farmers milked their animals themselves and majority practiced morning time milking. Most of the animals had an average milk yield of 2 to 4.9 litres per day. Majority of the farmers relied on indigenous remedies for treating their animals. Deworming and vaccination of animals were not practiced by most of the farmers. Parasitic infestations and digestive disorders were found to be the major problems in the area. Tribes were not much concerned about the marketing facilities. Only a quarter of the farmers sold milk to cooperative societies. The interference of middle men reduced the profit gaining from the sale of animals and manure.

An experiment was performed to study the effect of scientific intervention in the system. The animals in test group were found to be superior to the control group with respect to standard lactation yield, birth weight and daily weight gain of calves, body weight of goats at one year of age and minimum number of diseases occurrence. The results pointed to the draw backs in the existing management system and the need for scientific intervention.

Major constraints in the system were lack of knowledge about modern husbandry practices, poor genetic potential of animals, restrictions for grazing, lack of sufficient veterinary services, poor credit and insurance availabilities and marketing problems.

Measures like dissemination of improved animal husbandry practices, increased fodder production and introduction of feed subsidy schemes, planned breeding strategies, improvement of veterinary facilities, promoting micro-finance and credit availability, strengthening the marketing system and inter-departmental collaboration may be adopted to improve the efficiency of the livestock production system of tribes of Attappady.