The effect of urea molasses mineral block (UMMB) supplementation on milk production in indigenous cattle.

Goal

This project was started keeping in view the socio-economic status of the villagers. Low milk yield, poor reproductive performance and low growth rate characterized the cattle population in the village. This was detrimental to the economic health of the farmers and also to the environment. Poor performance of the cattle can be attributed to the inadequate and irregular availability of quality feed stuff. So to improve the productivity of the cattle, supplementation with urea molasses mineral bloc (UMMB) was done to improve the utilization of poor quality feed stuffs.

Description

Shortage of feeds and fodders, both in terms of quantity and quality, is a major problem for developing countries like India in meeting the nutritional requirement of livestock. The unpredictable pattern of rainfall and recurring droughts also adversely affect agronomy and livestock. It is here that dairy farming plays a crucial role in supporting the farm economy acting as a cushion during the environmental vagaries. Dairy farming forms an important component for development of the rural economy. Further, in India about 80 % of the dairy farming is done by the small holder farmers with 1-10 animals each. This coupled with low milk yield and lack of good quality feed stuffs lead to the overall low profitability of dairy farming. Keeping these factors in view this project was designed to evaluate the effect of supplementation of the UMMB blocks on the milk production of the cattle and its role in improving the economic status of the farmers. Said village in district Kathua (J&K) was selected and adopted for the project.

Results

Daily milk yield per cattle per day in different clusters of the village were recorded. This revealed that overall average milk production of cows was 8.58±0.22 litre/d pre treatment and it reached up to 9.68±0.34 litre/d post treatment. It clearly indicated that the average milk yield per day was increased by 1.10 litre (11.36 %).