Studies on existing milking and health care practices adopted by dairy farmers in Tarai region of Uttarakhand, India

The study was conducted purposively to ascertain the milking and health care management practices followed by dairy farmers in Udham Singh Nagar district, the data were collected using a pre-designed and pre-tested questionnaire from 200 randomly selected dairy farmers. The present study revealed that, majority of the farmers 90.50 per cent practiced twice milking in their animals. The results showed that majority of farmers around 84.00 per cent followed knuckling method while only 7.00 per cent of the farmers were adopting full hand milking method. Wet hand milking was found to be a common practice adopted by majority of farmers 85.50 per cent. About 60.00 per cent farmers used incomplete milking as a method for drying their animals and checked their animals for mastitis only when it was required. Around 51.00 per cent of respondents consulted a veterinarian for the treatment of their sick animals. It was observed that only 55.00 per cent respondents practiced deworming at regular interval for their milch animals. Majority of the dairy farmers 98.00 per cent never practiced disinfection in their animal sheds. Finally regarding disposal of placenta majority of the farmers, 65.00 per cent were disposing the placenta by burial in soil while, the remaining 35.00 per cent were throwing the placenta along with the garbage. As far as, heath care practices is concerned majority of dairy farmers 85.00 per cent told that animal health care services either in the form of veterinary hospital, dispensary etc were available. About 91.50 per cent dairy farmers practiced regular vaccination of their animals against diseases like Foot and Mouth disease and Haemorrhagic Septicaemia.