1Department of Live Stock Production and Management, Faculty of Agriculture, Mahatma Gandhi Chitrakoot, Gramodaya Vishwavidyalaya, Satna-485 001, India.
2KVK, CSKHPKV, REC, Barthi, Bilaspur, HP-174 029, India.
3KVK, CSKHPKV, HAREC, Kukumseri, Lahaul & Spiti, HP-175 142, India.
4Department of Animal Nutrition, COVAS, CSK HPKV, Palampur.
5CSWRI, Avikanager, Rajasthan.
Two villages from each of three blocks, representing Varanasi district of Uttar Pradesh, were randomly selected to collect information regarding fodder production and feeding patterns of different farm categories. Information was collected from all categories of households by personal interview. It was found that berseem was main green fodder crop during January to April and chari main fodder crop during July to October. Concentrate mixture consisted of mainly grain (wheat and barley) grain products (gram chunni or wheat bran or rice bran). All the farmers fed common salt to the animals in a limited amount separately once a week. The amount of concentrate fed to the pregnant cows varied between 0.45 to 0.77 kg and for buffalo 0.5 to 0.75 kg per day per animal. Amount of fodder fed to the milking animals by different categories of farmers was higher than that of pregnant and dry animals. The amount of concentrate varied between 1.17 to 1.49 kg and 1.08 to 1.46 kg in case of milch cow and buffalo. The amount of concentrate varied between 0.102 to 0.39 kg and 0.192 to 0.29 kg in case of dry cow and buffalo, respectively.
