Availability of Feeds and Feeding Practices and Socio-Economic Status of Farmers in Irrigated Cotton Based System

A comprehensive survey for locally available feedstuffs and feeding practices adopted by the farmers of cotton growing area of Haryana was conducted. The farmers were classified according to land holding i.e. large farmers (>10 acres), medium farmers (5–10 acres), small farmers (2–5 acres) and marginal farmer, (<2 acres). The results indicated that wet land, dry land, land under cotton cultivation, cotton cultivation percent of wet land, cotton yield and land under fodder production were significantly higher in the category of large farmers as compared to others. The number of cattle per family, number of cattle bull per family, number of buffalo per family, total number of animals per family and availability of cross bred cattle were higher in the large farmers as compared to others. However, availability of desi cattle was higher in the category of small farmers and the values were lowest in the category of large farmers. Wheat straw was the sole roughage fed to the animals in all categories of the farmers. Berseem, oats, green jawar, green bajra and local seasonal grasses were main sources of green fodder. The large and medium farmers fed higher quantities of green fodder to their milch animals. Wheat dalia, gram churi, barley, bajra grain cotton seed, cotton seed cake and mustard cake were the part of concentrate mixture fed to milch cattle and buffaloes. Only 20 percent farmers were supplementing the diet with common salt and none of the farmers were feeding mineral mixture to their animals. Number of milch buffalo and cattle, milk yield of cattle and buffalo and average milk yield per animal was significantly higher in the animals of large farmers than other categories. It was also noticed that all categories of farmers were facing the problems of repeat breeding anestrus in buffalo heifers and lack of knowledge about the balanced feeding of animals.