Field level study on productive and reproductive parameters of dairy animals in Uttar Pradesh, India

The profitability of dairy animals has direct relation with the performance of productive and reproductive parameters of dairy animals. Hence, an attempt was made to measure the productive and reproductive performances of dairy animals and farmers’ knowledge on these aspect in Faizabad district of Uttar Pradesh. For this purpose 150 farmers engaged in dairying were interviewed and it was found that the 38.62 percent of respondents were having medium level of knowledge about dairying, while about 36.55 percent of respondents were having high levels of knowledge on the productive and reproductive aspect of dairy animals. Knowledge index on productive and reproductive parameters of dairy animals was calculated and observed that respondent were possessing 66.79 per cent knowledge in study area. It was further observed that respondents were having good knowledge (68.91%) on productive practices as compared to reproductive practices (66.10%). Simultaneously the respondents who reared Crossbred cow based herd were having knowledge up to the extent of 72.87 per cent on productive and reproductive practices. Though the respondents were facing serious constraints in rearing, they were frequently updating their knowledge on productive and reproductive practices as compared to Buffalo and indigenous cow based dairy farmers.