Livestock, Poultry and Dairy Management
Questions test reproduction numbers, breed identification, feeding logic and common diseases of cattle, buffalo and poultry.
Core rules
- Cattle breeds: Deoni, Khillar, Red Kandhari and Dangi are Maharashtra draught and dual-purpose breeds; Gir and Sahiwal are dairy breeds; Holstein Friesian and Jersey are exotic dairy breeds used for crossbreeding.
- Buffalo breeds: Murrah, Jaffarabadi, Nagpuri, Surti, Mehsana.
- Reproduction: oestrus cycle about 21 days; gestation about 280–285 days in cows and about 310 days in buffaloes; lactation about 300 days; dry period about 60 days; calving interval 12–13 months.
- Colostrum (first 3–5 days of milk) is rich in antibodies and must be fed to the calf within the first hour.
- Feeding: roughage plus concentrate; a practical thumb rule is 1 kg concentrate for maintenance plus about 1 kg for every 2.5 kg of milk.
- Poultry: incubation 21 days in chicken; broilers reach about 2–2.5 kg in 6 weeks with feed conversion ratio near 1.6–1.8; layers start laying at 18–20 weeks and give 280–300 eggs a year. Kadaknath and Giriraj are native breeds.
- Common diseases: foot and mouth disease, haemorrhagic septicaemia, black quarter, mastitis in cattle; Ranikhet (Newcastle) disease and fowl pox in poultry.
Worked example
A crossbred cow gives 10 kg milk daily. Plan her concentrate allowance. Reasoning: maintenance allowance = 1 kg; production allowance = 10 ÷ 2.5 = 4 kg. Total concentrate = 5 kg per day, split into two feeds, plus green fodder and dry roughage offered free choice with clean water.
Traps that cost marks
- Mixing exotic dairy breeds with Indian draught breeds.
- Giving colostrum late or discarding it.
- Using the buffalo gestation length for cows.
- Forgetting that mastitis is an udder infection, not a viral disease.