Rearing systems of malabari goats in Northern Kerala, India

Malabari goat is a precious germplasm of Kerala. Vast majority of rural women depend on goat rearing for their livelihood in Kerala. The socioeconomic aspects of goat keepers revealed that 50.48% of goat keepers belonged to 31 to 50 years of age-group. Goat keeping was much popular among the other backward castes (49.05%) followed by general castes (42.86%), Scheduled Caste (6.90%) and Scheduled Tribes (1.19%). Gender-wise analysisofannual income revealed that >56% of women goat keepers earned less than Rs 20000 per year, whereas, around 45% of male goat keepers earned above Rs 40000 per year. In majority of cases (48.00%) the flock size ranged from 1 to 10. The study revealed that the major system of goat rearing in the area was homestead farming (77.40%). The animals were mostly housed along with residential housing (65.71%) and the majority being Kachha type (73.81%) with raised floor with wood (69.76%). Most of the goat keepers graze their goats from afternoon to late evening (77.14%) and provide cut grass only (48.57%) at stall. The overall annual morbidity and mortality was 18.53 and 5.51%, respectively. The major reasons ofmortality were colibacillosis and pneumoenteritis inkids while toxaemia and general weakness in adult goats. It was concluded that proper hands-on training in scientific goat rearing required to be provided to the goat entrepreneurs and women goat keepers.