Major Problems Facing Livestock Production
1. Feed supply wide seasonal variations have an important influence on feed production. When there is high variation in feed supplies particularly, forages, marked fluctuations arise in the rate of weight gain of grazing animals causing low productivity and poor quality animal products. The major part of the feed supplied thus goes just to satisfy maintenance requirements.
2. Low animal nutrition leads to high susceptibility to diseases and parasites. These cause exceedingly high losses in animal productivity.
3. Excess of animals to be supported by the environment. This is brought about largely because individual farmer and community or tribal groups do not relate their stock numbers according to available feed supplies.
4. Much of the time the prevailing temperature and humidity impose stresses on animals. When this happens, the animals must expend extra energy if they are to maintain their thermal balance. This results in a low-output efficiency of feed energy for productive processes.
5. The programmes for genetic improvement are few and this constitutes an important inhibitor to successful livestock enterprises.
6. Incentives to increase production are often low for the majority of the livestock owners because of inadequate marketing organizations, including processing and storage facilities for providing reliable supplies of products to consumers and feed to producers.
7. Poor transportation is a serious deterrent to producer incentive. For example, after cattle have been trailed a very long distance (400-600km), there may be little profit from their sales because of the weight shrinkage.
8. The system of land tenure can be a further inhibitor to potentially successful livestock enterprises since many of the owners will have to graze their animals in lands other than their own.
9. Other problems include those of insufficient capital for implementing innovations in husbandry e.g. improved variety of stock, feeding and milking devices, scarcity of appropriate technology, poor educational background of the intended users of the technology and inadequate means for informing farmers about worthwhile changes.
10. Religious beliefs and social customs are very difficult to alter and this limits the type and number of animals that can be reared or raised in some parts of the country.
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