Contrasts in grazing management and diet between goat herds owned by two ethnic groups in Rajasthan, India 

C D Wood, V C Badve*, D N Shindey** and C Conroy 

Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich, Central Avenue, Chatham Maritime, Kent ME4 4TB, UK.  Tel +44 1634 883540  Fax +44 1634 883959
c.d.wood@gre.ac.uk
*BAIF Development Research Foundation, Central Research Station, Uruli Kanchan, District Pune 412 202, India.  +91 20 816248 Fax +91 20 816347 
crs@pn2.vsnl.net.in
**BAIF Development Research Foundation, 969 Vinayak Sadan, Near Water Tank, Paneriyon Ki Madri, Udaipur 313 002, Rajasthan, India.  Tel +91 294 464485 
rridma@india.com

 
Abstract

The diets consumed by goats belonging to specialist goat keepers (from the Gayri community) and smallholder mixed farmers (from the Tribal community) in one village in Rajasthan were monitored.    It was found that Tribals' goats spent about twice as much time walking to look for feed, reflecting the distances from the homesteads to the grazing areas used.  Differences were most pronounced in the summer season when feed shortages are considered to be most acute.  A major difference was in access to lopped tree fodder, which was very restricted for Tribal goat keepers.  Tribal goat keepers were generally very much more dependant on grazing in the hill areas than those in the Gayri community. The latter had relatively high access to Acacia nilotica, a relatively good quality tree fodder for this region,  but in an interesting contrast Acacia leucophloea was much more important to the poorer goat keepers.  This was probably due to the ability of this species to prosper in poor land, such as the hill areas, and also the preference of goat keepers for other species due to the sporadic incidences of toxicity of A. leucophloea pods.  The study illustrated how, even in a single village, goats belonging to different  ethnic groups can be managed in different ways and have different diets.  Interventions to improve the utilisation of A. leucophloea pods and to increase the availability of tree fodder could benefit Tribal goat keepers in particular.

Keywords: Goats grazing, tree fodders, small-scale farmers

Introduction

Goat keeping is an important source of income, milk and manure for farmers in arid and semi-arid areas of India.  Goats may be kept by small-holder crop farmers, by pastoralists with large goat herds and in small herds by the landless.  The reasons for keeping goats, the production systems and production constraints can be diverse.  Feed shortages are a widespread constraint during the dry season in arid and semi-arid areas such as Rajasthan, India.  Indeed, feed shortages appear to be one factor in the increasing importance of goats and the decline of cattle populations in Western Rajasthan (Robbins 1994).  

Udaipur District, Rajasthan, India is a hilly area which receives about 650 mm per year of rainfall.  The valleys are populated and used for crop production with some irrigation from wells.  The hills used to be forested, but much of the forest has become degraded due to poorly managed use for grazing and firewood.  Feed scarcity, water shortages and disease were reported as being the major constraints in five villages surveyed in Udaipur District, including Khakad village, where this study was conducted.  Goat keepers' perceptions of constraints varied between villages in the same district and between different ethnic groups (Conroy and Rangnekar 2000). 

Small-scale farmers in less developed countries can be highly heterogeneous, and  more homogeneous sub-groups of farmers need to be identified as target groups for particular innovations (Werner 1993).  Agrawal (1994) has described how different ethnic groups can have different farming and livestock keeping traditions, which lead to different uses of resources such as village commons, and how interventions aimed at improving the lot of villagers can disadvantage some groups. Conroy (2000) reviewed the impact of 15 silvi-pastoral development projects in India, where part of the common grazing lands were fenced off to allow regeneration and management of the vegetation.  While buffalo-keepers tended to benefit, other livestock keepers could be seriously disadvantaged.  Goat and sheep keepers could be obliged either to sell their animals or migrate for several months if they were unable to use traditional grazing areas. In many cases it is, therefore, important to have information available on the various farming and livestock production systems before interventions can be developed. 

In spite of the widely recognised importance of feed scarcity as a constraint to livestock keeping, there is remarkably little published information on the diets of livestock under on-farm conditions.  For stall-fed production systems, feeds can be monitored by weighing the feed offered and refused, coupled to analysis of feed samples (Nyaata et al 2000).  For production systems which involve grazing it is very much more difficult to monitor what is consumed.  Hoeggel et al. (1994) estimated the availability of fodder from four commonly-used fodder tree species in the Ajmer District of Rajasthan, and were able to make comparisons between villages on this basis.  Sankhyan (1995) described the diets selected by grazing sheep during the wet season in an on-station farm near Jaipur, Rajasthan.  This study used mouth grab and hand picked samples of pasture.  More extensive studies have been undertaken in Mexico, where Ramirez (1999) described studies on the diets of grazing goats and sheep.  Diet composition was estimated from esophageal fistula samples.  However, this invasive technique is mainly suitable for on-station rather than on-farm studies. 

Wilson (1957) described a monitoring technique used to study the browsing behaviour of goats in Uganda, and was able to list 28 species of plants which the goats consumed with some indication of their relative importance.  More recently, Bennison et al (1998) used a similar technique to investigate the effects of supplementation and trypanosomosis infection on diet selection and grazing behaviour of cattle in The Gambia.  Again it proved possible to define the diet in some detail.  While monitoring studies have previously been used under close researcher control, usually on-station, the technique appeared suitable for use in on-farm situations under looser supervision.  It could potentially provide semi-quantitative data on diets and grazing behaviour in this poorly researched but important area.  

This paper describes the use of monitoring of goats owned by goat keepers from two ethnic groups.  Monitoring was used to investigate seasonal husbandry and grazing behaviour, and the types of feed consumed.  An attempt was made to identify the most important feeds consumed during the summer season when feed shortages are generally regarded as being particularly severe.  The information was intended to help identify feed-related constraints and interventions aimed at easing these constraints.
 

Materials and methods

Monitoring was established in Khakad village, Udaipur District, in early May 1998 and continued until mid May 1999.  Khakad is situated in a valley, which is irrigated by wells.  The valley is enclosed by rocky hills, which are now largely deforested.  There are three seasons, the wet (monsoon) season which normally starts in mid June and ends in October, followed by a cool dry winter season until March, and then a hot dry summer season.  The area suffers from periodic droughts caused by the failure of the monsoon rains.  The farming calendar is largely controlled by these seasons.

There are two major communities in Khakad who keep goats.  For the Tribal community livestock keeping is generally a secondary activity, after crop production. They may also work as hired labourers for part of the year.  Goats are kept mainly for income (goat sales); milk and some meat are produced for domestic consumption.  Kidding occurs mainly in the winter season (November to February) with some kids being born in the summer season (March to June).  Gayri goat keepers specialise in keeping livestock: large ruminants, sheep and goats.  Livestock numbers have decreased in recent years mainly due to feed shortages, with sheep keeping now being rare.  Goats are kept for income (goat sales) and milk (which is also sold), and to a lesser extent for manure.  Most Gayris do not consume meat for religious reasons. They generally have large herds, or manage large numbers of goats belonging to the extended family.  Kidding takes place mainly around the end of the rainy season/start of the winter season (September to November). Thus there are differences in management objectives, with milk production being of major importance for the Gayris but not to Tribal goat keepers.  Differences in husbandry are reflected in the different kidding seasons.

Both Wilson (1957) and Bennison et al (1998) took observations every five minutes using a series of codes to represent the activities of the animals.  The same approach was adopted in this study, modifying the coding system to its particular requirements. Monitors were recruited from both of the local goat-keeping communities.  Each monitor selected two female goats from within their own community herds.  The goats selected were lactating at the time of selection.  Monitors followed a single goat on each day of monitoring.  Each monitoring period lasted for four consecutive days when each goat was monitored for two days per monitoring period; the goat to be monitored on any particular day being chosen at random.  Observations were taken every five minutes from before the goats left the homestead to after they returned in the evening, to include all of the grazing time.  The goat activity, type of feed, the location of the goats and, where possible, the name of the feed were noted by monitors.  Data were entered onto spreadsheets and transferred to a database. Here, the numbers of counts for each feed type and activity for individual goats for each day of monitoring were extracted.  Activity, feed type and location codes are given in Table 1.

Statistical analysis (means and ANOVA) was performed using Statistical Package for Social Scientists (release 9.0.0, SPSS Inc, Chicago, USA).  A more detailed analysis was conducted by considering each observation period as an individual experiment and, within each, the date was used as a blocking factor.  Bartlett's test for homogeneity of variance was used to explore variances of data from different observation periods.  Each observation was analysed for each period (where appropriate) and the analyses summarised for the effect of ethnicity and the interaction with date of observation. The statistical significance of the differences in the number of counts per goat per day between Gayris' and Tribals' goats for each period was investigated using the 95% confidence intervals.  Positive values indicate significantly higher (P<0.05) counts for Gayris' goats, negative values indicate higher (P<0.05) counts for Tribals' goats.  If the confidence interval included the value 0, differences were regarded as non-significant (P>0.05).

Feed codes were developed in the course of the monitoring and are given in the results. Total counts per feed for each monitoring period were extracted, and daily average counts for each period of monitoring calculated to identify the most frequently-occurring feed codes.

Details of the monitoring periods are given in Table 2.   The monsoon rains started on 10 June 1998, between periods 3 and 4.  In 1999 the rains started on 18 June, after the monitoring had been completed. 

 Very limited location code data were collected during monitoring period 1 as the codes were being developed at this time, and limited named feeds data were collected during monitoring periods 5, 6, 10 and 11 and so have not been analysed.
 

Results 

For the major activities, locations and feed types consumed, the overall data were highly skewed.  Mean and median values were, however, similar in all cases, so only mean values are presented. Variances generally differed between periods, so that the standard error was not regarded as a good summary statistic.   Statistically significant  differences between Gayris' and Tribals' goats are indicated where found, together with non-significant differences.  Where there was insufficient data to conduct a meaningful analysis this is also indicated. 

Goat activities

Overall, Tribals' goats rested more than Gayris' goats (P<0.05).  Tribals' goats rested significantly more (P<0.05) than Gayris' goats in periods 5, 6, 7, 10 and 11, but significantly less (P<0.05) in Periods 2 and 9.  Resting time for Tribals' goats tended to be particularly high during periods 5, 6 and 7, but with considerable variation among goats. To some extent resting times were a reflection of when the monitors started and finished monitoring, and so were particularly susceptible to artefacts arising from the practices of individual monitors.  

Goats from the Gayri community herds spent more time grazing than those from the Tribal community.  For seven out of eleven observation periods, Gayris' goats grazed for a  longer time than those of Tribal goat keepers.  For period 8, this was reversed, with Tribals' goats grazing longer (Table 3). 

Tribals' goats spent an average of almost twice as much time walking as the Gayris' goats (Table 4).  There was little seasonal trend apparent in this activity.  Gayris' goats tended to walk more in September and November, and less in the summer months. 

 Goat locations

Gayris' goats tended to spend more time near the homestead than Tribal goat herds.  The hills were far more important as grazing areas to the Tribals' goats, with the lower parts of the hills being more important than the higher parts.  However, mean values are misleading as the use of the hills was highly seasonal, particularly for Gayris' goats. 

In the periods from July through to November (during the monsoon season and the start of the winter season), both Tribal and Gayri herders took their goats to the hills.  Gayri herdsmen did not use the hills to a major extent outside of these periods.  In contrast, Tribal herdsmen used the hills for most of the year. The seasonal increase in walking by the Gayris' goats appeared to be associated with the seasonal use of the hills, which are further from the homesteads than other grazing areas. 

Gayris' goats were observed significantly more (P<0.05) than Tribals' goats on the slopes of the hills in period 5 and to the same extent in period 6 (Table 5).  Tribals' goats tended to spend more time in the tops of the hills in periods 6 and 7 than in other periods and, for all periods except period 5,  Tribals' goats used the tops of the hill more than Gayris' goats. 

Feed types consumed by goats

Lopped trees, grazed tree fodder or grass, and dried leaves were the most commonly used types of feeds (Table 6).  The Tribal goat keepers had a much reduced access to lopped tree fodder compared to Gayri goat keepers.  Dried leaves tended to be a larger component in the diet of Tribal goats. Concentrates appeared to be used more by Tribal goat keepers, although the methodology used was probably not a good indicator of concentrate use.  Again, there were large differences between monitoring periods.  In most of the periods, Gayris' goats consumed more lopped tree fodder than Tribals' goats (P<0.05).  From November to June (the winter and summer seasons), lopped tree fodder was an important component of the diet of Gayris' goats.