Vol. 9, Special Issue 8 (2020)

Author(s):
Santosh Kumar Samantaray, Sidhartha Ranabijuli, Bimalendu Mohanty, Bineeta Satapathy, Prasanta Kumar Panda and Manas Ranjan Behera

Abstract:
A research study was performed to assess the level of adoption different practices with respect to backyard poultry rearing in Ganjam, Dhenkanal and Angul districts of Odisha. The data were gathered with the help of an interview schedule from 130 respondents. From the present analysis, 32.19 percent of farmers were aware of the improved health practices before the training, while the majority (67.80 percent) of rural poultry farmers were unaware of better management practices such as brooding, cleaning and use of disinfectant for the poultry unit, feeding ready-made feed, postmortem of dead birds by veterinary practitioners, isolation of diseased birds, supply of mineral mixture, prompt care of sick birds and consultation with vet doctors. However after the training received from KVK, Ganjam-I (83.89 percent), farmers were aware of the health practices and a majority (79.02 percent) adopted management strategies. Timely treatment of sick birds (t=20.29), segregation or isolation of diseased birds and consulting veterinary doctors (t=19.10) were found to be highly significant and positively related to the adoption of management practices. The age of the farmers showed negative correlation (-0.163), while the gender, educational level and holding of land were having significantly positive correlation with the level of adoption of the respondents. Significant values for t test were reported for all management practices except providing readymade feeds (0.57). The constraints found were low summer egg prices (92.3%), high production costs (91.53%), and financial difficulties (80.76%). This study suggests that the government should be proactive to develop credit linkage, training facilities and proper marketing facilities for the betterment of the backyard poultry farmers.