Weak dairy animal: an asset or a liability?

摘要

An efficient and experienced dairy farmer usually has the ability to predict in advance the stage or time his animal is going to suffer. Whereas casual dairy farmer is unable to detect even when the animal is suffering, that is why it is said dairyfarming is a 24 hour job. A few years back dairy farming was considered to be only an important subsidiary occupation, but due to changing scenario, presently it is proving to be a major alternative to agriculture and dairy farmers are adopting it on commercial lines. The main objective in commercial dairy farming always remain focussed on econimical and quality milk production which is possible only from healthy animals and that too with minimum expenditure without any compromise with quality of inputs. A low producer and an unhealthy animal can never be profitable. Moreover, such animals do not breed at regular intervals and result in additional expenditure on medicines and sometimes lead to incurable diseases. A single animal's death may turn the profits into losses. There are many adages related with this aspect of dairy farming e.g. 'Marha dhaga chatti rog' (A weak animal is a bundle of diseases) and 'Pashuan di Haar margai' (Suffered inbearable losses because of unhealthy animals). This aspect can be visualized from the fact that if someone is sick at home then all the family resources are drained off within no time. Similarly, a low producer and unproductive animal can be compared with non-earner who always remain irritant with everybody at home and in the society. According to a rough estimate if an animal is unable to produce milk for one standard lactation (305 days) then it simply neutralizes the profit from 10 dairy animals., Usually animal's health can be directly correlated with animalfeed and their management which directly and indirectly depends on shelter from extremes of weather, availability of green fodder and feed, preventive measures for health and day to day decisions regarding general management. An efficient and experienced dairy farmer usually has the ability to predict in advance the stage or time his animal is going to suffer. Whereas casual dairy farmer is unable to detect even when the animal is suffering, that is why it is said dairy farming is a 24 hour job. Commercial dairy farming can not be done through remote control. It requires full involvement of the farmer. In this article we will touch only those aspects of dairy farming where the average dairy farmer commits the mistakes so that he can rectify them and increase the profitability.