Ethno-veterinary medicines and practices followed by Kangayam cattle farmers in Western agro-climatic zone of Tamil Nadu

Introduction

Ethno-veterinary medicine (EVM), the scientific term for traditional animal health care, encompasses the knowledge, skills, methods, practices and beliefs about animal health care found among the members of a community (Mc Corkle, 1995) [5] . Ethno-veterinary practice (EVP) is based on folk beliefs, traditional knowledge, skills, methods and practices to cure diseases and maintain health of animals (Tabuti et al., 2003) [8] . Majority of indigenous diagnostic and ethnobotanical knowledge methods used in cattle healthcare have been passed down from generation to generation, mainly by word of mouth and apprenticeship (Bredemus, 2021) [1] . Furthermore, these ethnoveterinary medicine are very dynamic and multipurpose as they can treat several different types of livestock disorders, along with being readily available in the remote areas and cheapest as compared to the synthetic drugs (Ullah et al., 2013) [10] . Therefore, if not documented, the immense knowledge, skills, and experience accumulated over generations may become extinct in developing countries because of migrations, urbanisation, and technological development (Crane et al., 2017) [2] . Thus, this study attempt to document the Ethno veterinary medicines and practices being used by the Kangayam farmers in the western agro climatic zone of Tamil Nadu.

Materials and Methods

Four districts (Coimbatore, Erode, Karur and Tirupur) of Tamil Nadu were purposively selected since they were identified as the breeding tract with considerable cattle population. Descriptive research design was employed to obtain pertinent and precise information concerning the phenomenon under quest and to draw possible valid general conclusions. Since the cattle farmers were scattered in the selected four districts, Key informants including local Veterinarians, cattle breeders, officials of Primary Milk Producers Cooperative Societies, representatives of NGOs and progressive farmers were involved to identify the initial respondents for the study in each district. Through these initially identified respondents, other respondents were identified and selected through snowball sampling technique leading to a total of 50 respondents in each district. Thus, a total of 200 respondents were selected for the study.

common livestock ailments of the study area were found by direct questioning and through Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) technique as well where in which gathering, learning, reviewing and analyzing data should be on spot while staying with the community, i.e., on the spot analysis. The basic principle of this method is that farmers are well aware of the environment, in which they do farming operations, and that answers too many questions can be found in the collective experience of the farming community and their informal experiments carried out over years. This method can be used to unpack the practices of successful farmers, so that information can be disseminated to a wider group of farmers. Data on plants used as EVM, category of illness for which EVM were used and number of farmers following EVM were collected and triangulated -a method of crosschecking data from multiple sources to search for regularities in the research data. In this study, progressive farmers and local healers were the sources used to search for regularities. To verify the importance of medicinal plants, authenticity and homogeneity among the informants about EVM practices, the Informant Consensus Methodology followed by Mandal and Rahaman (2014) [4] was adopted.

Informant Consensus methodology

Consensus methodology estimates the Informant Consensus Factor (F ic ) for each category of diseases to identify the agreements of the informants on the reported EVM practices for the group of diseases and to identify most potentially effective medicinal plant species as well as plant based remedies used in the culture of rural people of the study area. Informants' Consensus Factor, F IC (Trotter and Logan, 1986) [9] is expressed by the formula,

where, N ur = number of use-reports of informants for particular illness usage, where a use-report is a single record for use of a plant based remedy mentioned by an informant. N t = total number of remedies used for a particular illness category by all informants.

In this study, each polyherbal remedy was considered as a single use-report. The value of F ic provides a range of 0 to 1, where a higher value signifies its greater authenticity as few plants are used frequently for a particular disease or disease category and lower values reflects the disagreement among the informants. Based on the F ic , the plants which were commonly used as EVM by the respondents were identified and documented.

Results and Discussion

Ethno-veterinary medicines and practices followed by Kangayam cattle farmers during digestive, respiratory and reproductive disorders Ethno-veterinary medicines cover people's knowledge, skills, practices, methods, and beliefs about the care of their animals. In Indian situation, ethno-veterinary medicine plays a significant role in livestock production and health care. Hence, it often becomes the only available means for farmers to treat ill animals in rural areas. Consequently, it was opined exceptionally to document and further disseminate indigenous knowledge on different uses of plants as animal health care component in order to help the farmers and to promote conservation measures. Thus, an attempt was made to explore and document the ethnoveterinary therapeutic practices followed by Kangayam cattle farmers in the study area through participatory mode and the results were presented herewith.

Documentation of most commonly used ethnoveterinary medicines (EVM) followed by Kangayam cattle farmers

An attempt was made to document the veterinary medicines (EVM) followed by Kangayam cattle farmers in the study area and the results were presented in Table 1. A total of 75 ethno veterinary medicines were identified through participatory mode and documented in three categories. The three categories of ailment were Digestive disorders, Respiratory disorders and Reproductive disorders. Digestive disorders include treatment of Anorexia (Six), Bloat (Ten), Diarrhea / Enteritis / Calf scour (Fourteen), Impaction and Constipation (Seven) and Indigestion (Five). Respiratory disorders include treatment of Pneumonia (Seven), Bronchitis (Three) and Lung emphysema (Two). Reproductive disorders include treatment of Retained placenta (Nine), Anoestrum (Five), Repeat breeding and Infertility (Four) and Uterine infections (Metritis / Endometritis etc. -Three).

Identification of ailment category for which more ethno-veterinary medicines (EVM) and practices were followed by Kangayam cattle farmers

The method of Informants' consensus factor (F IC ) had been used to identify most potentially effective medicinal plant species as well as plant based remedies prevailed in Kangayam cattle farming. Each polyherbal preparation used for treating the disease condition has been considered as single use-report. Pirandai smash along with salt was rubbed on the tongue and upper palate of the cattle.

2 Turmeric (Curcuma longa), Ginger (Zingiber officinale), Bitter gourd (Mimordica charantia) and Jaggery About 50 g each of Turmeric, ginger and bitter gourd were ground and mixed with 200 g of jaggery for one application

The ground mixture was administered orally twice a day for 2 days.

Ginger (Zingiber officinale), Onion (Allium cepa), Chithirathai (Alpinia galanga) and Karunchiragam (Nigella sativa)

About 25 g of Ginger, 50 g of Onion, 25 g of Chithirathai and 10 g of Karunchiragam were ground for one application

The ground mixture was fed orally along with 200 ml of water once daily for 2 days.

5

Poduthalai (Lippia nodiflora) About 100 g of fresh leaf boiled in 500 ml of water to make leaf decoction

The leaf decoction was administered once daily for three days.

Sothukathalai (Aloe vera)

The inner part of the four sothukathalai leaves of one feet length (Soru) was taken and washed in water to remove bitterness and mixed with small amount of common salt

The core of Sothukathalai along with salt was applied on the tongue and upper palate of the cattle. II Bloat Four inch of erukku twig along with leaves and 100 ml of gingelly oil was taken Animal was made to chew the twig of erukku along with leaves and administered 100 ml of gingelly oil orally only once. A perusal of Table 2 shows that there was varying range of consensus among the respondent regarding the plant species used for treating a particular disease condition in the study area. The mean F IC value for different ethno-veterinary medicines used for treating various illnesses had ranged from 0.96 to 0.86 with an average value of 0.92 which point out that there exist a high level of consensus among the respondents regarding different phytotherapeutic uses of local medicinal plants. Similar results were reported by Ragupathy et al., (2008) [7] with the F IC > 0.71. Among the three categories of ailment studied, it was found that the farmers had followed many ethno-veterinary practices using several locally available plants and herbs to take care of digestive disorders of their Kangayam cattle with a mean F IC of 0.96 followed by reproductive disorders (mean F IC = 0.95) and respiratory disorders (mean F IC = 0.86).

The high level of consensus among the respondents in using various plants and herbs to cure the disease condition of their cattle showed wide spread traditional knowledge and practices in the community level. Meena et al., (2019) [6] reported that Informant consensus (Fic) shows a high degree of consensus for gastrointestinal, respiratory, and reproductive (0.95 each) ailments, which were followed by parasitic infection and wound healing (0.90 each) for the traditional veterinary practices associated with cattle healthcare in Marwar region of Rajasthan. Similarly, (Khandelwal 2017) [3] reported that majority of the plants in Banaskantha district, Gujarat are used to treat different types of gastrointestinal problems of the cattle like diarrhea, expulsion of worms, constipation, and so forth. It has been found that stomach infections are more common in lactating cows which might be due to poor quality of fodder and drinking water. Informant consensus results also showed the highest informant citation for gastrointestinal, respiratory, and gynaecological problems.

Conclusion

Due to modernization, there is danger of loss of knowledge on traditional ethnoveterinary practices. Therefore, documentation of this knowledge is valuable for the farmers and their future generations to properly cure their domestic animals through scientific implementation. The traditional uses of medicinal plants in health care practices provide valid clues to new areas of research for the discovery of new drugs on novel biological compounds. Ultimately this results in improvement of socio-economic conditions of farmers and reduces the pressure on natural resources.

References

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