IMPROVED GOATS MILK AND MEAT PRODUCTION FEEDING GUAR HAY IN MARGINAL RAINFED AREAS OF POTHWAR REGION OF PAKISTAN

In the rain-fed region of Pakistan, feed scarcity is one of the major limiting factors to improving productivity of goats. To overcome this limitation, potential of guar (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba L.) was investigated as an alternative, cheap and improved feed for goats owned by poor women farmers under on-farm conditions in Talagang, district Chakwal, Pakistan for two consecutive years (2007-08). Guar seed of improved variety “BR-99” and DAP fertilizer termed as Improved-Practice (IP) was provided to 40 and 100 interested households in 2007 and 2008, respectively selected from 10 villages. Farmers were trained to plant the improved guar fodder crop in comparison with their own guar crop termed as Farmer-Practice (FP). Female facilitators were trained for hay making, data recording and goats caring practices to facilitate woman-goat farmers. Forage yield data was recorded at 50% pod formation stage. One fourth of planted area was kept as seed by each farmer. The guar fodder was preserved as hay and fed to goats as supplementary feed during fodder lean period of January-February. Two experiments were undertaken. In the 1st experiment, effects of guar hay on milk yield over 35 goats were determined. Three treatment groups were tested: 1) High (Guar hay supplemented @ 2 kg per goat per day); 2) Medium (Guar hay @ 1 kg per goat per day); 3) Control (Groundnut residue). For the 2nd experiment, 18 goats were used for evaluating live weight gain under similar set of treatments. Milk yield data was recorded at 10 days interval and live weight gain fortnightly. All data were collected by trained women farmer facilitators. Results indicated that Improved- Practice (IP) yielded 56.52% and 64.44% higher green and dry matter yields, respectively than Farmer- Practice (FP). Guar-hay significantly improved milk yield (P 0.001). Guar hay fed @ 2 kg hay per day per doe yielded 34.19 liter milk in the feeding season compared to 20.08 liter of Control. Similarly, per day milk production was also higher in this treatment (855 ml) than Control (502 ml). Similar effect of guar hay fed @ 2 kg hay per day per doe was observed in 2nd experiment and the increase in total live weight gain was 8 kg compared to 2.83 kg of Control. Per day weight gain results presented similar picture and meat production nearly tripled, weight increased from 47.22 to 133.33 g per day in Control and High treatment, respectively. This study concluded that improved guar hay fed @ 2 kg per goat could be used to improve the overall productivity of goats in the marginal rainfed ecology of Pakistan. Seventy participating farmers produced over 800 kg of guar seeds during this period for replanting of guar crop in 19 villages.