Industrial training report.

Abstract

During the period between 28th February to 6th May 2022, an internship training was undertaken at Kalongo Town Council, Agago. District Local Government to partially fulfill requirements for the programme leading to the award of a Bachelor’s Degree in Animal Production and Management of Busitema University. The training started with orientation of interns at the Town Council and District Headquarters. Field activities carried out during the training period were broadly categorised under the core animal husbandry practices, animal traction, and veterinary public health. Under animal. health management, activities done included vaccination. against diseases, disease diagnosis and treatment of sick food animals. Under animal feeding and nutrition, activities included animal feeds formulation, farmer training on animal feeds and feeding management, pasture selection & establishment, and iron supplementation of piglet as a remedy for piglet anaemias. Ear tagging and ear notching of cattle, goats, and pigs were the activities done under the context of animal identification. In animal breeding. and reproduction, selection of breeding stocks, castration, oestrus induction & synchronisation and hand mating of sows were done. Activities done under record keeping included farmer trainings on record-keeping and designing record sheets. Under animal housing, the activities included siting and designing animal houses and farmer training on animal house management & biosecurity. In animal traction, training of farmer groups on selection, training of traction animals and the care & welfare of oxen were done. In veterinary public health, activities done were ante mortem inspection of slaughter animals and post-mortem inspection of carcasses. The field attachment gave me skills in veterinary extension service provision, animal disease diagnosis and management, use of animal management tools, animal housing, communication, leadership and management skills. These activities have a positive influence on my future career as it gave me more professional skills. The activities have a positive correlation to my classroom knowledge since they were the practical versions of what I learnt in class. There were minimal challenges faced during the training like Karamojong cattle rustlers' insecurity, low turn up for trainings demand for handouts and though there were managed successfully by the field supervisor. Conclusively, the attachment gave me an interesting field experience due to the numerous activities I did and learnt and I recommend that the University should give more practical sessions to students and the farmers should be enlightened through mind-set change and refresher trainings by the local community development workers.