Feeds and Forage Availability, Utilization and Management Practices for Livestock in Some Selected Coastal Areas of Bangladesh

The study was carried out to determine management and utilization of feed resources in the coastal regions of Bangladesh. For these purpose, a well structured questionnaire was developed to collect information by door to door household survey (HHS). Based on cattle population, 2 Upazilas from each of 10 districts which were adjacent to the coastal regions of Bangladesh were selected for HHS. A randomly selected 50 farmers from each Upazila were considered for collecting information. After screening a total of 915 HHs were considered under statistical analyses. Result shows that about 58% HHs were landless and average of about 89% HHs in the surveyed areas were keeping cattle among which 78.5% of them kept indigenous local cows with an average number of about 3.0 cattle per HH. Buffalo was not found in every region which was found only in 1.75% HHs with an average population size of 0.06 per HH. Sheep was found only in 0.4% HHs with an overall number of 0.02 per HH. About 17% HHs were keeping goats with an average size of 0.54 per HH. Significant difference on performance was found in native cows among different regions but not in crossbred cows. It was observed that majority of the landless HHs reared their cattle by tethering (49%) and extensive management systems (57%) but stall feeding was most preferable system by medium (47%) and large farm HHs (60%). Native pastures, crop residues (rice straw), grazing of crop stubbles and fallow lands were the major feed resources for feeding cattle in those areas. About 87% HHs fed rice straw and about 66% HHs fed cut and carry green grass to their cattle. The seasonal variation of feeding roughages was not too much more but acute shortage of green grasses was seen in winter. Concentrates fed by the farmers in the surveyed areas were mainly rice polish, wheat bran, broken rice and mustard oil cake, but rice polish was the most available concentrate feed ingredients fed by about 82% HHs. Only about 12% HHs cultivated fodder, but about 38% HHs had opportunity to cultivate fodder if they are given technical supports. Most of the HHs had no any specific causes for not to cultivate fodder although they rear cattle. Also, most of them had no idea about the constraints to cultivate fodder. Although natural pastures and crop residues were produced not sufficiently but their full and efficient utilization for livestock feeding has been hindered partly by economic problems and inadequate knowledge about the methods, lack of finance and accessibility to the methods. Finally it may be concluded that raising the productivity of the pasture land by adopting sound management practices, growing productive and nutritious forages in association with food crops are the options for resolving livestock feed shortage around the year. However, training of farmers about feed resources utilization, management and the involvement of government in improving the financial capabilities of farmers are very important.