Ethno-veterinary medicines and practices followed by Kangayam cattle farmers in Western agro-climatic zone of Tamil Nadu

Abstract

The present study was conducted in Coimbatore, Erode, Karur and Tirupur districts of Tamil Nadu with the objective to document the Ethno-veterinary medicines followed by the Kangayam cattle farmers. Snowball sampling technique was pursued to identify 50 Kangayam cattle farmers in each district, thus a total of 200 respondents were selected for the study. The ethno-veterinary medicines, plants and most common livestock ailments of the study area were found by direct questioning and through Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) technique. Informant Consensus Methodology was adopted to find out the importance of medicinal plants, authenticity and homogeneity among the informants about EVM practices. Results revealed that among the three categories of ailment studied, the farmers had followed many ethno-veterinary practices using several locally available plants and herbs to take care of digestive disorders of their Kangayam cattle with a mean FIC of 0.96 followed by reproductive disorders (mean FIC= 0.95) and respiratory disorders (mean FIC = 0.86).