Dairy production in some selected integrated farms in Sokoto State of Nigeria

Abstract

A survey of eight integrated farms in four local government areas of Sokoto state in north-western Nigeria revealed the following about dairy production on such farms:breed of cattle kept, Sokoto Gudali, Friesian, and Sahiwal; average dairy herd size,69.4 head; husbandry system was largely semi-intensive; milking was mainly by hand in the morning for about 14 minutes per cow; milk processing was largely non­existent on the farms; age at first calving, 34.7 +4.8 months; length of lactation, 247+42 days; milk yield /day,42+1.0 litres; milk yield/lactation,l,047 +353 liters; calving interval,339+24 days; type of breed effect was found to be significant (P<0.05)on all the five measures of lactation performance; also all of them differed significantly (P<0.001) across the farms; identified dairy production constraints included non-sufficiency of grazing land, lack of all-year round water supply and high cost of feed stuffs.

Key words: Dairy production system, lactation performance, production constraints