A Study on Calf Mortality and Managemental Practices in Commercial Dairy Farms

Accepted: 27/12/2015 Abstract The present investigation was conducted on sixty commercial dairy farms in Guntur and Warangal districts of Andhra Pradesh by selecting twenty dairy farmers each from small, medium and large sized dairy farms to study the calf mortality and managemental practices that are being followed by the farmers. The results indicated that high incidence of calf mortality was observed due to gastroenteritis (80%) followed by parasitic load. High mortality rate was recorded in male calves (83.25%) rather than female calves (79.47%). The calf mortality rate (67.22%) was lower in small commercial dairy farms when compared to medium (80.70%) and large size (83.21%) farms. No commercial dairy farmer has followed disinfection of naval cord except two farmers of small dairy farms. Majority of the dairy farmers fed colostrum (83.33%) to the calves only after release of placenta which is not so beneficial for new born calves and provided milk (95%) to the calves before and after milking of the dam. Only 16.67% of farmers have dewormed their calves at regular intervals. Hence it was concluded that the farmers felt that rearing of calf is uneconomical and preferred purchasing of milch buffaloes as replacement instead of rearing calves.