FARMERS TRAINING CENTRE - TIRUVARUR

Objectives and Mandate
To update the progressive farmers in the use of latest techniques for carrying out intensive and profitable livestock enterprises.
To motivate and influence the progressive farmers to develop entrepreneurial skills and to run farms on commercial lines.
To increase food production of animal origin such as milk, meat and egg manifold by training the farmers and farm youth so as to promote overall rural development.

Major Activities

As the mandate of this centre is creation of awareness among the farmers about the scientific livestock farming to enable them to harvest remunerative returns, the following activities are carried out:

Training Programmes (both on campus and off campus)

• Dairy farming
• Goat rearing
• Sheep rearing
• Poultry rearing (Layer and Broiler)
• Turkey and Japanese quail rearing
• Pig farming
• Duck rearing
• Green fodder production and Agroforestry
• Fish farming
• Rabbit farming
• Milk and milk products preparation

The above training are imparted to the rural farmers, unemployed youth, farm women, members of Self Help Groups, TANWA and others coming from various agencies such as, DRDA, Mahalir Thittam, NGOs etc.

Salient Achievements

1. As a result of the above awareness programmes, 35 new livestock/ poultry farms Dairy, Goatery, Turkey, Japanese Quail, Rabbits and Green fodder production were started by the farmers.
2. A research project entitled "A Pilot Project on Upliftment of Economic Status of Rural Women through Adoption of Estrus Synchronization and Fixed-time breeding in Dairy Animals" under the financial assistance of the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India, New Delhi was completed.
3. A total of thousand dairy animals were selected for this project. The selected animals were grouped under four categories with respect to their reproductive cycle status.
4. Group I - Animals (with CL in any one of the ovary) were treated with 25mg of Prostoglandin PGF2a (5ml, Lutalyse) intramuscluarly.
5. Group II - Animals (without active CL in both the ovaries) were treated with Progesterone (CIDR-Controlled Internal Drug Release) device intravaginally and left for nine days and removed thereafter.
6. Group III - Animals (random selection) were treated with 8 µg of GnRH analogue (2ml Receptal) intramuscularly and 6 days later 25mg of Prostoglandin PGF2a (5ml, Lutalyse) intramuscluarly. A second injection of GnRH analogue (2ml Receptal) intramuscularly after 48 hours of PGF2a treatment.
7. Group IV- Animals were observed for natural estrus and inseminated once and served as control.

The salient findings of this project are as follows:

• In the PGF2a group 75.2% exhibited estrus, while in the CIDR group 85.3% and in GnRH group 70.8% of animals exhibited estrus. No significant difference was found between treated groups.
• Of various treatment groups, the percentage of animals conceived were 56.1, 53.5 and 48.4 in GnRH, PGF2a and CIDR group, respectively. A high significant difference was noticed in conception rates between different treatment groups. In control animals, the conception was only 31.0%.

FACULTY

Dr.R.Ravindran, Associate Professor and Head
Dr.K.M.Sathivel, Assistant Professor