Documentation of traditional veterinary medicines used by camel owners in Marwar region of Rajasthan, India

Abstract

Information was collected from 290 camel keepers in the arid zone to identify the technical details of camel management and to crosscheck data for relevance testing. A total of 156 practices were identified and scientific relevance values obtained for each. Overall 93, 34 and 39 practices had high, medium and low relevance values, respectively. In the case of trypanosomiasis, impaction, overall feeding and breeding, the variation between traditional and scientific management practices was found to be significant (P 5 camels (45.58%) preferred the traditional approaches, while owners of 2-5 camels (49.78%) believed in a mixed management system. The number of camels significantly (P <0.01) influenced these management practices. The study concluded that a balanced combination of traditional and scientific practices cope better with problems of camel management at grass-roots level, and practices having a high and medium scientific relevance value must be preserved before they are lost.