Strategies for Housing Practices in Goat Farming of Southern Tamil Nadu

Abstract

Goats are considered as a mobile bank and often termed mortgage lifter and automatic teller machine (ATM) for the weakest section of society and ray of hope in the areas where agriculture is not economically viable and ecologically sustainable. Tamil Nadu is endowed with two recognised breeds of goats viz. Kanni adu and Kodi adu which belongs to meat type. A total of 180 goat flocks from 60 villages spread in 30 blocks in three districts (Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi and Virudhunagar) were selected using multi-stage random sampling technique. Almost all the farmers in the districts provided night shelter (96.67 per cent) and only few farmers provided shelter to their goats during the day and night hr (3.33 per cent). Statistically, there was no significant relationship found between provision of shelters and district. The majority of the goat farmers provided open (41.11 per cent) type followed by closed (31.11 per cent) and half-open (27.78 per cent) types of housing to their goats. Statistical analysis revealed a significant (P<0.05) relationship between the type of goat housing and districts. Provision of special enclosures for young kids in the study area was followed as partition in enclosure (46.11 per cent) and koodu a special type made up of bamboo and palmyra leaves with (53.89 per cent). Statistical analysis showed that there was highly significant difference (P<0.01) observed between the provision of separate enclosure for kids and districts.