A STUDY ON ANIMAL FEED, LABOUR USE AND MILK PRODUCTION IN DAERAH ISTHVIEWA YOGYAKARTA PROVINCE DAIRY FARMING

Abstract

An eflicient milk production system depends largely on three factors — animal
species, nutrition and animal care. The most important input for increasing the
animal productivity is the quality and quantity of feed. A properly balanced dairy
cows ration should consist of 2.6 lb of fodder fed per 100 lb of lactating cow body
weight per day and 5.5 lb of concentrate fed per lactating cow per day. Since fodder
quality is poor and the feeding of concentrate is below the balanced ration, dairy
cows are unable to produce milk to their latent capacity. Stall-feeding is common
practice in Indonesia, but little information is available on it because of the
difficulties in assessing the amount of fodder stall fed animals consume. The animal
up keep, including milking, feeding, watering, etc, is a labour-intensive activity,
involving most of the family members. But little is lcnown about the labour use,
including family labour in dairy farming in Indonesia. Thus, this paper analyses the
aspects related to the dairy cows feeding, labour use and employment pattem in
dairy farming and milk production in Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta Province. The
findings show that almost all the farmers stall feed of the dairy cows twice or thrice
a day, feeding fodder and concentrate separately. There are more tendencies for
female family members to perform the dairy work in the rural area. In Daerah
Istimewa Yogyakarta Province there is still a room to improve milk production,
mainly by improving nutrition through balanced ration feeding of fodder and
concentrate.