FARM ANIMAL KEEPERS' ADOPTION FOR THE IMMUNIZATIONS FROM EPIDEMIC DISEASES IN SOME VILLAGES IN THE NEW VALLEY GOVERNORATE

This study was carried out to identify the steps of respondent keepers' adopting process for farm animals, for immunization from epidemic diseases, to define the relationship between the adoption process for the immunization from epidemic diseases and some of respondents' personal and social characteristics (age, the main profession, size and type of land tenure, size and type of animal possession, purpose of keeping farm animals, participation in social organization membership and exposure to the different source of information). Also, to define the relationship between the steps of the adoption process of the immunization from epidemic diseases and some of the idea's characteristics (material cost, appearance and publicity, resilience and relativity, degree of the complexity of the idea, the practice discretion, trial possibility and the return of applying the practice). Finally, to recognize the most important source of information for farm animals keepers, to identify the problems that respondent keepers face to uplift animal production and to identify their suggestions to overcome such problems.
The study was conducted at El Dakhla, the New Valley Governorate, in the villages (Mout, Garb El Mawhoub, Al Moashia and Al Gadida), where farm animals are varied and diverse (cows, buffalos, sheep and goats). The villages have the highest number of farm animals keepers.
A sample of farm animal keepers of 135 respondents: 45 from the three villages was selected, having an information about the idea of the immunization from epidemic diseases or applied the idea on their own animals for a while and stopped it or still applying the idea until the time of the field data collection.
Data were collected using questionnaire forms via interviewing the respondents. The form was designed and pretested to achieve the research objectives. Some statistical methods were used to analyze the data and conclude the results: mathematical mean, frequency table, the percentage and the adjusted mean, person's simple correlation coefficient.
The following results were obtained:
- 100% of farm animal respondent keepers had an idea on the immunization from epidemic diseases during the awareness phase, 94% were interested in increasing their information about the idea, 23.7% ignored that idea after being interested in it. In the evaluation stage, 70.4% of respondents moved to the evaluation phase, 25.9% were not interested in applying such idea after being evaluated, 44.4% of respondents decided to adopt the idea on some farm animals, and 12.6% did not continue to apply the idea on their animals after they applied it, and 29.2% decided to pursue the application of the idea on their farm animals.
- There was no correlation between the steps of the adoption process of the immunization from epidemic diseases and the studied personal, social and communication variables.
- There was a positive correlation at significance level of 0.01 between the steps of the adoption process of the immunization from epidemic diseases and the characteristics of the idea of the immunization from epidemic diseases.
- Most of respondents (77.8%) depended mainly on their personal expertise to acquire information in the field of animal immunization followed by the veterinarian, the animal immunization specialist at the Agricultural Department, specialized livestock keeper, farm and animal input dealers, relatives and neighbors.
- 100% of respondents mentioned that fodder crops were costly and lack of veterinarian services, which were the most crucial problems that farm animal keepers faced.