Abstract:
A Cross sectional survey was carried out in Namanyonyi sub county Mbale district in the month of March to assess the feeding practices of lactating cows among small holder dairy farmers, the specific objectives of the Study were; to identify the common feed resources used for feeding lactating cows, to determine the -feeding regime of lactating. cows among. small holder dairy farmers and to determine relationship between milk yield of lactating cows per day. and feed supplementation among farmers. Data was collected from 98 respondents selected randomly from the study area using a pre-tested questionnaire with both open and closed questions. The data collected was analysed using SPSS version 16 and excel and results presented using tables, graphs and pie-charts. The study revealed that majority of the farmers depended on majorly natural pastures (81.6%) and home planted fodder majorly Napier grass (Pennisetumpurpureum) (67:3%) during rainy season followed by Crop residues during the dry season. Crop residues used for feeding were maize stovers and potato, veins (33.7%), followed by maize stovers only (29.6 %), with only 44.9% of the respondents who supplemented milking cows at a constant rate of mostly 2kg throughout tile lactation period with maize bran in both rainy and dry seasons. The respondents did not have any feeding regime, the amount and frequency of feeds given to animals depended on the availability of feeds. throughout the year.
Milk production in the study area was relatively low with most of the farmers (32.7%) obtaining 8-10 litres of milk per day per cow. This was attributed majorly to feed scarcity and the fact that farmers were not aware of feeding lactating cows for production. The farmers should therefore be trained on small scale feed conservation strategies such as tube silage' and box baling of hay to ease dry season feed shortages, farmers should also be trained on the requirements of lactating cows at the various. stages of lactation to ensure that their nutrient requirements are met
