Buffalo calves health and management practices in urban dairy farms

Abstract

Data regarding buffalo calves rearing and calves mortality was collected from 60 buffalo dairy farms of Badwani city in Madhya Pradesh by selecting 20 dairy farmers each from small , medium and large dairy farmers and  their dairy calves management practices were studies in detail. The results showed that mortality rate in buffalo calves of  large size of dairy farm was 91.01 % , while it was 77.73 & 86.05 % in small and medium dairy farm size , respectively . None of the dairy farms adopted the deworming, cutting & disinfection of naval cord, manger provision to feed their calves. Only 25 % of dairy farms adopted the vaccination in their calves. Timely feeding of colostrum within 2-3 hours after birth was adopted by only 11.67 % dairy farm, while, 88.33 % dairy farms fed first time colostrum to their calves after release of placenta. The calf health management practices in commercial dairy farm were very poor. The high mortality rate in calves in urban dairies was mainly due to poor adoption of health & management practices. The study also showed that owners of urban dairy farm were not interested in rearing the buffalo calves because of poor return from their sale. Thus there is an urgent need to educate these dairy owners to make calf rearing an economic Proposition.