Myagdi. Khadkaman Pun, 71, of Muna, Dhawalagiri Rural Municipality-3, spends his daily life in a moving barn. He has been raising cows traditionally and has 19 cows in the barn. Pun has continued his traditional livestock farming profession by keeping a barn in the valley during the winter and a barn in the lake during the rainy season.
He said that the family is forced to earn a living through farming and animal husbandry. ‘Raising cattle in a barn is a source of sorrow. After farming, one has to raise animals for fertilizer. The income from selling livestock is negligible. Bulls are sold only after three to four years of raising them,’ Pun said. Farmers who raise buffaloes and goats earn more cash income than those who raise cattle.
There is a high demand for buffaloes and goats raised in mobile pens because buffaloes raised in the Lekali region are milky and goat meat is tasty. Farmers here cultivate millet, corn, barley, wheat, etc., so animal husbandry is essential to make the fields fertile.
Those who raise animals in mobile sheds made of temporary tents made of tarpaulin and tarpaulin are forced to face the hardships of the ups and downs of forests, lakes and valleys, and the challenges of rain, snowfall, and wind.
80-year-old Lil Bahadur Pun from Muna also spends his daily life in the shed. Continuing the work of raising sheep and goats that his parents had been doing, he said that he has raised his family of six daughters and four sons from the shed. “I grew up in a barn, I still live in a barn. I used to have sheep, now I only raise goats. I am old and can no longer go to the barn, but in the valley I spend my days in the barn,” he said.
Although earlier every household had a mobile barn, there was a lot of activity in the barn area, but recently the number of people taking the barn to the barn has been decreasing, and the pastures and paddocks in the barn are deserted, he said. As the number of livestock has decreased, locals in the barn area take turns living in the barn. In Muna, about 100 households still keep traditional mobile cattle sheds and raise livestock.
Until two decades ago, all households in the village kept mobile cattle sheds and were involved in raising cattle and sheep. As traditional livestock farming could not become commercial, young people have started to go abroad, while only the elders of the village have carried on the tradition of mobile cattle sheds. Nowadays, young people are no longer found in cattle sheds. Only the elderly generation is found in mobile cattle sheds.
Harka Bahadur Roka, a cattle farmer in Muna, said that the new generation does not seem interested in farming, haymaking, and cattle farming. He says that although livestock rearing in mobile sheds has not become commercial, the practice of keeping sheds to provide manure for farming and to maintain the ancestral tradition has continued.
‘I could not leave the profession of my ancestors. In the meantime, I worked as an office assistant at a health post. Now, I have resumed raising livestock in my own ancestral mobile shed,’ said Roka. Recently, the practice of raising sheep in mobile sheds has been decreasing. The locals have preserved the tradition of mobile sheds for raising cattle and goats.
In winter, the sheds are moved to make manure on cultivable land in the valley fields. The cattle sheds that are taken to Buki in Jestha are moved towards the valley after Kartik. After the winter crops, including barley and wheat, are brought in, the livestock of the moving cattle sheds have been shifted towards the lake since the beginning of Baisakh. The locals here take the livestock of the moving cattle sheds to Dhorpatan, Jaljala, Rughachaur, Patihalne Buki and Kharka for grazing.
Despite the decrease in the number of livestock rearers in this area, the tradition of moving cattle sheds has continued, said Devendra Roka, ward chairman of Dhawalagiri Rural Municipality-3 Muna. “The practice of the young generation living in stables has disappeared, the older generation is preserving the mobile stables, we have started a program to help improve the mobile stables, if traditional animal husbandry can be made commercial, it would also help in income generation,” said Ward Chairman Roka.
In the current fiscal year, Dhawalagiri Rural Municipality is collecting demands from farmers to improve and build infrastructure for the construction of mobile stables with 25 percent cost sharing. Dhawalagiri Rural Municipality has the highest number of livestock rearing in mobile stables in Myagdi. Animal husbandry has been carried out by keeping traditional mobile stables in the Muna, Mudi, Malkabang, Lulang, and Gurja areas of this municipality.
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