Some constraints of ruminant livestock production in the Coastal Savannah Plains of Ghana

Abstract

Semi-structured questionnaires were administered to 102 randomly chosen ruminant livestock farmers in the Coastal Savannah Plains of Ghana to determine their production practices and the main production constraints. The involvement of women in livestock production in the Coastal Savannah Plains of Ghana was low (15 %). Forty-nine percent of ruminant livestock keepers interviewed had only one type of animal and among those with more than one, the combination of cattle and goats formed the majority. In all, there were more goat keepers than cattle and sheep keepers. Majority of goat and sheep keepers hold between 1 and 10 animals while majority of cattle keepers had more than 20 animals. In the dry season, 41% of cattle farmers graze their animals within village boundaries, 41% relocated animals 5 -20 km away and 18 % herded cattle to places 1.5 – 6.4 km daily. The most important disease problem of the small ruminants was found to be Peste de petite ruminants (PPR) while that of cattle was dermatophilosis.