|
Community based breeding boar management Approach for a sustainable
crossbred pig production
Introduction
Nabchey is a focus village in the of Lingmutey watershed identified
to initiate research activities that would contribute directly
in enhancing the household income of the farmers. The village
has an age old tradition of rearing pigs and piggery enterprise
is considered a major thrust and a viable source of income.
The village consists of 22 households and the average holding
is 2 pigs. Despite of the great enthusiasm of the community
for pig production, the performance of native pig breeds had
been not very satisfactory and could not fetch a substantial
income. Considering community’s dependence on pigs for
their sustenance and source of income, RC felt pertinent to
scale up present pig production preferably with the use of
improved breeds.
Intervention
The Dzongkhag livestock sector, Punakha had procured and supplied
three exotic boars to the community from pig breeding centre
at Serbithang. RC Bajo on the other hand backstopped technically
in designing the boar pen and supported financially for this
improved housing.
The households in the community were divided into three groups
to care and manage the breeding boar. The community had an
understanding that household could breed their local gilts
and sows to any of these breeding boars irrespective of their
group. The breeding boars were fed with locally available
materials ad libitum twice a day consisting of household wastes,
crop by- products and local weeds. A routine animal health
and welfare needs were provided by the extension agent based
there at the community. However, the conception rate from
initial service from one of the boar was observed to be very
poor and then the farmers had stopped using its services.
The records pertaining to reproductive parameters, production
performance and income generated were obtained from the two
active breeding boars.
Benefits
In total, 92 crossbred piglets were born from females bred
to these active breeding boars within a period of two years.
The community has earned a sum of Nu.1,80,000/- through either
sale of piglets (3 months old) or after attaining one year.
Further this practice of community management of breeding
boar over the years has built a strong group capacity and
dynamism for community to venture into piggery enterprise
especially on marketing of their piglets and pork. The group
had made a substantial capital savings to scale up their enterprises
and replace the previous breeding boars with the new stock
from Government Central farm.
Conclusion
From the study, it is indicative that community based management
of breeding boar is a sustainable approach of up scaling pig
production for improving the income generation capacity of
the farmers through sale of piglets. This strategy could be
a way forward to increase crossbred pigs in the villages and
enhance household income generation capacity of Bhutanese
farmers particularly in villages with traditions of keeping
pigs for income and sustenance.
|