Survey on animal husbandry practices in Bihar revealed that buffalo is preferred over crossbred cattle by farmers due to higher content of fat in milk. Overall, buffalo comprises of 30% of the total livestock population while crossbred cows accounted for 18%.

Animal husbandry is a remunerative practice in rural areas of Bihar generating 15-35% of the farmers’ total income. Goat, pig and backyard poultry are mostly owned by socio-economically poor farmers.

No definite breeding policy is followed. However, artificial insemination is normally practiced with Holstein Frisian and Jersey semen.

Progressive farmers use concentrate feed for crossbred cattle and buffalo. Out of the total land only 8.25% is spared for fodder production. Fodders like Sorghum and Berseem are cultivated for feeding of animals. There is scarcity of fodder for about 122 days during May-June and October to December. Feeding of Berseem increased 30.25 ± 3.4, 22.0 ± 2.68 and 24.58 ± 2.16% while feeding of Sudan increased 13.27 ± 1.90, 11.66 ± 0.68 and 13.06 ± 1.65 % of milk yield in crossbred cow, indigenous cow and buffalo, respectively.

Incidence of infectious diseases like Foot-and-Mouth Disease, Hemorrhagic Septicemia and Black Quarter are common in the area, but due to timely vaccination incidence of these diseases were reduced. Tail gangrene and Surra are also prevalent in the region. Anoestrus and repeat breeding are some of the problems associated with reproduction.

The fresh water resources in the villages are meager and untapped. Most of the farmers are unaware of scientific techniques of aquaculture. They stock fish fries at the high rate of 14 – 30 thousand per hectare while productivity is observed to range between 0.9 and 1.2 t/ ha. Even the fish yield from developed ponds is at low level of about 2.175 t / ha / yr. The fishery of the river is dominated by catfishes namely Channas sp, Mystus aor, M. seenghala and Heteropneustes fossilis etc.

Fishponds in the villages were found infested with aquatic weeds like Hydrila sp, Eichhornia sp, Azollasp and Potamogeton sp. Banana leaves and berseem are used for feeding of grass carp while Indian major carps are being fed with mustard oil cake, rice bran and wheat bran @ 1-2% of body weight.

Majority of the farmers reported medium knowledge level on aquaculture. As high as 70% farmers adopted liming of ponds and 60% adopted supplementary feeding (rice bran and mustard cake). Non-availability of quality seed and credit to farmers were major constraints for fish production.