Knowledge of dairy animal owners in improved dairy husbandry practices in tribal area of south Gujarat

To study the knowledge of dairy animal owners in improved dairy husbandry practices a field survey in Vansada taluka was conducted during October 2008 to January 2009 and the information was collected. Twenty villages having functional primary milk producer's co-operative societies were selected at random from 95 villages. From each selected village ten dairy animal owners were randomly selected for filling the questionnaire related to the study. The present study revealed that majority of dairy farmers had medium knowledge on different component of improved dairy husbandry practices viz. 71% for feeding, 63.5% for breeding, 68% for general management and 73.5% for healthcare. The overall knowledge levels of the respondents in improved dairy husbandry practices fall under low, medium and high categories are 14%, 76% and 10% respectively. The knowledge index of different aspect of improved dairy husbandry practices of feeding, breeding, general management and healthcare practices were 50.88, 80.93, 55.60 and 63.57%, respectively and overall knowledge index of improved dairy husbandry practices were 62.83% which indicated medium knowledge level of dairy farmers in the study area.