Research
Knowledge and Attitude of Farmers of Small-Scale Dairy Farming at Dhaka, Bangladesh
The major purpose of this research study was to determine dairy farmer’s knowledge and attitude towards dairy farms and also to explore the relationships between each of 12 selected characteristics of the dairy farmers and their knowledge and attitude towards dairy farming. The study was conducted in 5 Thana’s under Dhaka district. The populations of dairy farmers in five Thana’s were 182 and sample size was 58 (random sampling method used). An interview schedule was used for data collection. The data were collected during 5 May to 5 August 2019. Scales were developed in order to measure the variables. Majority of the farmers (36.2%) had medium knowledge and 34.5% farmers had low and 29.3% had high knowledge on dairy farming. Regarding attitude, the study showed that about 50% of the respondents had high favorable attitude, 43.1% of the respondents had unfavorable attitude and 6.9% of the respondents had Neutral attitude towards dairy farming. Age, level of education, annual income, Organizational participation, training received, extension media contact, Cosmopolitans, herd size and Annual recurring expenditure of the dairy farmers had significant positive relationship and problem faced by dairy farmer had negative significant relationship with their knowledge on dairy farming, while land holding and milk production had no significant relationship with their knowledge on dairy farming. The findings of the study revealed that vast majority of the farmers (70.7%) had low to medium knowledge on dairy farming. Attitude of the farmers is not up to mark. A proportion of 50 percent of the farmers had high favorable attitude towards various aspects of dairy farming.
Effect of Dietary Zinc Supplementation on the Productive Performances, Carcass Traits and Blood Profile of Broiler
This study was conducted to determine the effect of zinc on the productive performances, carcass yield and blood profiles of broilers. Experiment was done for a period of 35 days with a number of 60 day old broiler chicks. Birds were divided into four dietary treatment groups with 3 replications each having 5 birds per replication. The dietary treatment groups were; T0 (basal diet; no zinc), T1 (basal diet + 50 mg zinc/kg feed), T2 (basal diet + 100 mg zinc/kg feed), T3 (basal diet + 150 mg zinc/kg feed). Results indicated that body weight and body weight gain were increased significantly (P<0.05) in the zinc supplemented group compared to the control group. Higher (P<0.05) feed intake and better (P<0.05) FE were also observed in the zinc supplemented group than control group and best performance was observed in the group fed 150mg zinc/kg feed (T3). Carcass yield was significantly higher (P<0.05) in the groups fed dietary zinc. Net profit was slightly higher in the T3 group but not significantly (P.0.05) differed with the control group. However, T1 and T2 showed less profit even than the control group. Blood profile of the experimental birds including Hb, PCV and ESR did not significantly differed (P>0.05) among the groups. The results indicate that addition of zinc in the broiler diet improves productive performances, carcass yield and increases net profit without affecting health status of broiler. So, zinc can be used as an effective and useful micronutrient to improve the performances of broiler.
