Project 2 — Feeding and Caring for Farm Animals

The animals kept on a farm are together called livestock. In India they include cattle, buffaloes, goats, sheep, pigs, poultry, camels, horses, yaks and mithun (gayal). They give us milk, eggs, meat and wool; bullocks and camels pull ploughs and carts; and their dung and urine become manure that keeps soil fertile. For a small farmer, livestock are like a savings account that also pays a small income every day. Some people specialise in one kind of animal: shepherds, goatherds, swineherds and cowherds may look after large herds.

The bond between people and animals is very old. Rock paintings in the Bhimbetka caves of Madhya Pradesh show grazing animals, decorated bulls and people riding animals, evidence that humans have lived and worked with animals for more than ten thousand years. Indian festivals still give thanks to livestock: Pola (Bendur) in Maharashtra, Kanuma in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, Mattu Pongal in Tamil Nadu and Khatarua in Uttarakhand, when animals are bathed, decorated and fed special food.

The care and management of livestock is called animal husbandry. Good husbandry has four basic parts:

• Housing: a clean, dry, airy shelter that protects from heat, cold, rain and predators.
• Feed and water: enough fodder of the right kind and clean drinking water at all times.
• Healthcare: vaccination, check-ups and timely treatment.
• A safe, calm environment: no overcrowding, rough handling or needless fear.

Animal husbandry also includes ethical practice: treating animals with respect, never overworking or beating them and caring for their comfort. Animals respond to kindness. Many farmers name each animal, and a cow often recognises its owner's voice. Research has even found that calm conditions, such as soft music masking machine noise, can help cows give more milk, because a relaxed animal is a healthier one.

In India, all animals (farm animals, pets and wild animals) are protected by the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, which forbids causing animals unnecessary pain, overwork, torture or abuse. Caring well for animals is therefore both a duty and the law.

Farm animals are strong and can be nervous with strangers. A cow or buffalo can weigh several hundred kilograms, and even a goat can butt hard. Learning to stay safe is the first skill in this project.

Safety rules around animals

• Always work with a teacher, the farmer or a veterinary professional present, and follow their instructions on how to approach.
• Approach slowly from the front or side, where the animal can see you, speaking softly. Never run, shout or make sudden movements.
• Never stand directly behind a large animal; a startled cow, buffalo or horse can kick backwards with great force.
• Make sure the animal is tied or held by its handler, and keep a safe distance until you are told it is fine to come closer.
• Offering a little familiar feed and talking gently helps the animal relax.
• Male animals (bulls, bucks, rams) are usually more aggressive than females; choose calm females or young animals for your work.
• Wash your hands with soap after touching animals, dung or fodder, since some infections can pass from animals to people.

The farm visit. Visit a farmer, a gaushala, a tabela (cattle shed) or an animal owner such as a tangewala. If your family keeps animals, observe your own. Note the place, the kinds and numbers of animals, how many people work there and the main tasks of the day. Then ask questions under each heading:

Also notice the relationship between owner and animal: does the animal come when called, and how does the owner tell animals apart? Collect a local story, song or poem about animals if you can.

India has one of the largest livestock populations in the world and is the world's largest producer of milk. It also has a great variety of native breeds. A breed is a group of animals of the same kind that share features such as size, colour, horn shape and abilities, and pass them on to their young. Breeds developed over centuries to suit local climate and work, so farmers choose a breed by the job it will do.

• Milk breeds of cattle: Gir (Gujarat), Sahiwal, Red Sindhi, Tharparkar.
• Draught (work) breeds: Khillari (Maharashtra), Hallikar and Amrit Mahal (Karnataka), Kangayam (Tamil Nadu).
• Special breeds: the Kasargod dwarf cow of Kerala, only about a metre tall, gives good milk at low cost; Siri cattle of Sikkim and Darjeeling have strong legs for hill work.
• Buffalo: Murrah (Haryana) is famous for milk.
• Goats: Jamunapari, Barbari, Sirohi, Black Bengal, Osmanabadi, Sangamneri.
• Poultry: desi breeds such as Aseel and Kadaknath, and commercial broilers and layers.

Many farms also keep crossbreds, such as Holstein Friesian (HF) crosses, which give more milk but often need more care in heat.

What livestock eat

Goats browse on leaves of shrubs and weeds and often graze in the open, while cattle and buffaloes prefer grass. Poultry eat grains such as maize and wheat, protein feeds such as soya meal, and kitchen scraps.

Record your findings in a table: your locality, common animals, common breeds (native or brought in) and their main use. For example, a block in Pune district might list Khillari and HF-cross cows for milk and work, Sangamneri goats for meat and milk, and desi and broiler poultry for eggs and meat.

Just as children are vaccinated against measles or polio, livestock are vaccinated against serious bacterial and viral diseases. A vaccine trains the animal's body to fight a particular disease before it meets the real germ. When most animals in a village are vaccinated, the disease cannot spread easily, which also protects the few that are not.

Who helps. Veterinary hospitals, dispensaries and animal health centres in villages and towns treat livestock. Veterinarians are trained and registered under rules set by the Veterinary Council of India. Every year the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, under the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, runs vaccination drives, and many vaccines, such as those for foot and mouth disease, are given free.

Common diseases you may hear about:

• Foot and mouth disease (FMD): a viral disease of cattle, buffaloes, sheep, goats and pigs causing blisters in the mouth and on the feet; animals stop eating and milk falls sharply.
• Haemorrhagic septicaemia (HS) and black quarter (BQ): bacterial diseases, often around the monsoon.
• Lumpy skin disease: a viral disease of cattle causing lumps on the skin, spread by biting insects.
• PPR (goat plague): a serious viral disease of goats and sheep.

A vaccination schedule is a table of which vaccine is given to which animal, and when. For example, FMD vaccine is given to cattle, buffaloes, sheep, goats and pigs about every six months, starting when the young animal is about four months old. HS and BQ vaccines are usually given once a year before the rains. Always copy the exact schedule from your local veterinarian, because it can differ by region.

Beyond vaccines, farmers protect animals by keeping sheds clean and dry, deworming regularly, controlling ticks, isolating sick animals and giving clean water.

Beliefs to check. Some farmers believe that milk or meat becomes poisonous after vaccination, or that vaccines reduce milk forever. Ask the veterinarian about such beliefs and the reasons behind them. Often a short, temporary dip in milk or a mild fever after vaccination is mistaken for lasting harm. Learning to ask an expert, rather than simply accepting or mocking a belief, is part of this skill.

Animals cannot tell us they feel unwell, so a careful owner checks them regularly and writes the results down. When you visit a doctor, the first things checked are temperature, pulse and general appearance. You will do the animal version. Work in a group of five or six, choose at least two small, calm animals such as goats or sheep, and make sure the owner, teacher or a veterinary professional is present.

1. Visual observation. Look closely without touching at first.

2. Respiration rate. Find the flank, the soft area on the side of the body between the last rib and the hind leg. As the animal breathes, the flank rises and falls. Using a stopwatch, count only the rises (or only the falls) for one full minute. Never count both, or you will double the number. Count when the animal is resting, not just after it has walked or been excited. A rough guide is about 25 to 50 breaths a minute in cattle and about 12 to 25 in goats; ask the expert for the normal range for your animal, since heat, exercise and young age raise it.

3. Body temperature. This is taken only by a veterinary professional, using a digital thermometer gently placed in the rectum for about a minute, then cleaned with cotton and antiseptic. Normal is roughly 38 to 39.5 °C in cattle and 38.5 to 40 °C in goats. Your job is to watch, write down the reading and ask what range is normal.

Recording. Make a row for each animal: name, species, breed and age; visual observations; temperature; respiration per minute. Then think: you too breathe faster and run a temperature when you have a fever. A raised temperature and fast breathing in a resting animal are early signals to call the veterinarian.

Body weight tells a farmer a great deal. It decides how much feed an animal needs, the dose of a medicine, whether a young animal is growing well and the selling price. Poultry can be put on a kitchen scale, but few villages have a scale big enough for a cow or a goat. Instead, weight can be estimated from body measurements.

The idea comes from Science: weight depends on volume and density (weight = volume × density). An animal's body is roughly a cylinder, whose volume depends on its length and on the square of the distance round it. So a formula using length and girth can estimate weight. This method is known as Schaeffer's formula.

Taking the measurements (with the owner holding the animal, which should stand square on level ground):

• Body length: measure in a straight line from the point of the shoulder to the point of the buttock (pin bone).
• Heart girth: pass the tape round the chest just behind the front legs and shoulder blades, snug but not tight.
• Measure in inches (1 inch = 2.54 cm), and measure twice to check.

The formula for a goat:

Live weight (kg) = Length × Girth² ÷ 600

For cattle and buffaloes, the commonly used version is Live weight (kg) = Length × Girth² ÷ 660. Some printed charts use a smaller divisor such as 300 or 330; with 300 the answer comes out in pounds, not kilograms, so always check which unit a chart gives. The divisor is simply a constant that turns the inch measurements into an approximate weight.

Because the animal is not actually weighed, this is an indirect estimate, and it can be off by about 10 to 15 per cent. A very fat, pregnant or very bony animal will be less accurate. Use the result as a guide, not an exact figure.

Record each animal's length, girth and estimated weight in a table. Ask the owner how they judge weight. Many experienced farmers estimate by eye and are surprisingly close; others say weighing is unnecessary. Ask them why, and compare their guess with your calculation.

Like people, animals need carbohydrates, protein, fat, minerals and vitamins. How much they need depends on body weight, the type of digestive system and how much they produce (milk, work, growth).

Ruminants and non-ruminants. Cows, buffaloes, goats and sheep are ruminants: their stomach has four chambers, and they bring food back up to chew again (chewing the cud). This lets them get nourishment from coarse grass and straw. Horses, pigs and poultry are non-ruminants and need better-quality feed.

Dry matter (DM). Fodder contains a lot of water. The part left when all the water is removed is the dry matter, and that is what actually nourishes the animal. An adult animal needs DM equal to about 2 to 3 per cent of its body weight every day; goats are often fed at the 3 per cent end.

Steps to a feeding chart (using a goat as the example):

• Step 1: Estimate the weight (from the last activity).
• Step 2: Daily DM = 3 per cent of body weight.
• Step 3: Split DM: 25 per cent from protein-rich concentrate, 75 per cent from fodder.
• Step 4: Split the fodder DM: 25 per cent dry fodder, 75 per cent green fodder.
• Step 5: Green fodder is about 80 per cent water, so only one-fifth of its fresh weight is DM. Multiply the green fodder DM by 5 to get the fresh weight to actually give.
• Step 6: Divide the day's feed into 2 or 3 equal meals, for example at dawn, midday and early evening, with clean water always available.

Why multiply green fodder by 5? If you counted fresh grass as if it were dry, the goat would fill its stomach mostly with water and still be hungry, just as you would feel hungry after a meal of only juice.

Finally, compare your calculated chart with what the owner actually feeds. If they differ, ask why; the owner may know about grazing time or local feeds. ICAR has mobile apps, including a feeding-chart app for dairy cattle and buffaloes developed with the National Institute of Animal Nutrition and Physiology, and a goat-farming app from the Central Institute for Research on Goats, which can be used to check your work.

Green fodder is plentiful after the rains but scarce in summer. Silage is a way to store it for months without losing its food value. The word comes from silo, a pit or container for storing feed. You can think of silage as a pickle of green fodder: just as mango is pickled or milk is set into curd, fodder is preserved by controlled fermentation.

The science. Once air is squeezed out and the container is sealed, the conditions become anaerobic (without oxygen). Lactic acid bacteria, which grow without oxygen, turn the natural sugars in the fodder into lactic acid. The fodder warms up a little in the first 2 to 8 days as bacteria grow, and over about 15 to 20 days the acid builds up until the pH falls to around 4. At this acidity, the bacteria and moulds that cause rotting cannot grow, so the fodder keeps.

Steps (for about 30 to 50 kg of fodder)

• Collect green fodder such as maize, jowar, Napier grass or sugarcane tops. Maize is excellent because it is rich in sugar.
• Chop it into pieces 2 to 3 cm long with a chaff cutter, with the farmer's help. Short pieces pack tightly with little air left.
• Fill a silage bag, or a thick polythene or HDPE bag, a little at a time, pressing each layer down firmly with your feet to squeeze out air.
• Tie the mouth tightly with string and seal it with tape so no air can enter.
• Store it in shade and do not open it for 2 to 3 weeks. Large farms use pits, cement tanks or steel containers in the same way.

Judging the silage when you open it

To test pH, mix about 25 g of silage in 100 mL of water, wait 15 minutes and dip pH paper.

Feeding. With the owner's permission, a goat or sheep can be given about 1 to 1.5 kg a day and a cow or buffalo about 10 to 15 kg a day, introduced gradually. Never feed mouldy or bad-smelling silage; it can cause food poisoning, serious illness and even death.

Ask farmers how they store green fodder, how much is wasted daily and whether silage could help them in the lean season.

Dry fodder such as straw fills an animal's stomach, keeps its digestion working and supplies some minerals. But plain straw is dry, hard and not very tasty, so animals often waste it, especially in the hot, dry season. A simple treatment with jaggery and salt makes it more palatable (pleasant to eat) and easier to digest. It also gives a use for crop stubble that many farmers otherwise burn after harvest, which pollutes the air.

Steps (for 10 kg of chopped dry fodder)

• Collect 5 to 10 kg of chopped dry fodder: rice, wheat or jowar straw, hill grass or legume stubble.
• In about 5 litres of water dissolve 3 per cent jaggery (300 g for 10 kg fodder) and 1 per cent common salt (100 g for 10 kg). If jaggery is not available, waste flour of wheat, rice or jowar can be used. About 100 g of mineral mixture from the veterinary centre may also be added.
• Spread the fodder on a clean floor or sheet and sprinkle the mixture evenly by hand, turning the fodder so every part is coated.
• Heap it and pack it into a polythene bag, or press it into a corner and cover it with a sheet.
• After 2 to 3 hours it is ready to feed.

Why chop fodder? Chopped fodder is easier to chew and mix, less is trampled and wasted, and animals cannot pick only the soft parts and leave the rest.

Testing your feeds with an animal

• With the owner beside you, open the silage bag and check its quality. Ask the owner to confirm it is fit.
• Offer a handful of silage in front of the animal, and watch: does it sniff and eat eagerly, eat slowly, or turn away?
• Repeat with the treated dry fodder, and if possible offer plain straw beside it to compare.
• Note what you see, and ask the owner for feedback: would they use these feeds? If not, why?

Be careful how you interpret: an animal that is very hungry may eat anything, so eating does not always mean it likes the feed. A fair test offers the feeds when the animal is not starving, and compares choices side by side. Animals can be choosy and may need a few days to accept a new feed, so introduce it gradually.

Farmers and herders have long used home remedies for small problems, and you can learn from them. But the golden rule is: home remedies are first aid, not a replacement for the veterinarian. Any serious, worsening or unclear illness must be shown to a vet.

Ticks and other external parasites. Ticks suck blood and spread diseases. Farmers use local herbs such as neem leaves and turmeric, for example as a neem leaf wash or a turmeric paste, to keep parasites away and help small wounds heal. Some plants that grow everywhere, such as lantana, are poisonous if animals eat them, so remedies must be used exactly as an experienced person or vet advises.

Indigestion. Cows and goats sometimes suffer from indigestion or bloating after eating too much or the wrong food. A traditional preparation for a large cow uses pounded betel leaves, ginger, black pepper, garlic and rock salt mixed in lukewarm water. Doses differ greatly for a goat and a cow, so the exact measures must come from the vet or an experienced farmer. Severe bloating, where the left side swells tight like a drum, is an emergency.

Collecting remedies. Ask farmers and elders which remedies they use. Record each one in a table: the problem, the ingredients with exact amounts, how it is made and how it is given. Then ask a veterinarian whether it is safe.

Designing a first-aid box for livestock. A practical box might contain: clean cotton and gauze, a bandage roll, scissors, an antiseptic solution, a digital thermometer (for the vet or a trained adult), turmeric powder, neem oil, a measuring cup and spoon, disposable gloves, rope for safe restraint and a card with the local veterinarian's phone number. Label every item with its use and amount.

Learning from herders. India's herding communities know animals deeply: the Brokpa of Ladakh and Arunachal with yaks and sheep, the Raika (Rebari) of Rajasthan and the Maldhari of Gujarat with camels and sheep, the Dhangar of Maharashtra and the Kuruba of Karnataka with sheep. Many move with their animals in search of pasture.

Records and reflection. Log the periods spent on each activity. Ask yourself what was hardest, what you would change, and whether our villages have enough veterinary clinics. Think about how the role of animals has changed as tractors replaced bullocks.

Careers include veterinarian, veterinary assistant, dairy farmer, poultry and goat farm manager, animal nutritionist, livestock extension worker and scientist at ICAR institutes.