Assessment of Existing Small Ruminants Rearing Practices Followed By the Bakarwal Tribe in Jammu District

The present study was conducted in Jammu district to assess the existing small ruminants rearing practices followed by the Bakarwal tribe. The data was collected from 120 Bakarwal respondents belonging to Marh, Satwari, Bhalwal and Dansal blocks of Jammu district with the help of structured interview schedule containing selected dependent and independent variables, through personal interview technique. The findings revealed that majority of the respondents were middle aged with poor education. The respondents had medium herd size, marginal land holdings and medium source of information. They were rich in cultural attributes and had good relationship with other communities. However, they belonged to medium income group and the property is inherited to youngest son in the family. Overall existing practices level of the respondents regarding sheep and goat rearing practices was medium with the existing practice's value of 58.72% and mean existing practices score value of 45.68±0.43. Respondents were following low existing practice in breeding (47.64%) as compared to the existing practice of feeding (68%), management (57.63%) and health care (55.67%). Majority (71.1%) of the respondents were following medium level of existing practices (57.90%), whereas, (10.0%) of the respondents had low existing practices (47.44%) and only (8.3%) of the respondents had high existing practices (67.24%). Insignificant positive association of independent variables, age (r=0.052), herd size(r=0.078), cultural attributes and relationship with other community (0.051), total annual income (r=0.178) and indigenous knowledge (r=0.152) was observed with existing practices. On the other hand source of information (r=-0.424**) was negatively and significantly associated with existing practices. Insignificant negative association of education (r=-0.080), landholding (r=-0.150), ownership pattern (r=-0.019) and marketing pattern (r=-0.110) was observed with existing practices of level sheep and goat rearing practices.