Proceedings of the Hon'ble the Chief Commissioner and Agent to the Governor-General, North-West Frontier
Province, No. 1544-C., dated 11th August 1904.
READ—
The Report on the working of the Provincial Civil Veterinary Department for the year
ending 31st March 1904.
REMARKS.—The Report was prepared by Captain Trydell, Superintendent,
Civil Veterinary Department, North Punjab, who is also Veterinary Officer of
this Province, and held charge throughout the year.
2. From 1st May 1903, in accordance with the instructions conveyed in
the Government of India (Military Department) letter No. 1330, dated 10th
March 1903, the control of horse and mule breeding operations in the Hazara
District was transferred to the reconstituted Army Remount Department. In
the remaining four districts the operations were left under the control of the
Civil Veterinary Department, but as these districts are of little importance for
the breeding of horses and mules, they are no longer supplied with Imperial
horse or donkey stallions. Such of these animals as the new Department did
not wish to take over were transferred to the District Boards, which were
already maintaining a certain number of pony and donkey stallions of their own
for local purposes. Thus in all districts but Hazara all of the stallions—horse,
pony and donkey—are now the property of and kept up by the District Boards;
such Veterinary Hospitals as exist have also been founded and are maintained by
the District Boards—in some cases with help from the head-quarters Muni-
cipality—and all charges on account of horse, mule and donkey breeding and the
treatment of cattle disease are borne by these Bodies except that the pay of the
Superintendent and his office and of two out of the eight Veterinary Assistants
employed in the Province for the above purpose are a charge against Imperial
revenues.
The present report therefore deals with breeding operations in only four
districts and with treatment of cattle disease in all five.
3. The number of pony stallions at work fell from 8 to 6 owing to the
exclusion of the Hazara District, but the number of mares covered rose from
232 to 289—an average of 48 per stallion—as compared with 45 last year.
The number of foals dropped as the result of the previous year's coverings—232—
was 101. This is a dicided improvement on the figures of the previous year—
85 out of 359 coverings—but appears to be partly due to the fact that more
care is taken to ascertain the results.
Towards the close of the year four horse stallions were made over by
the Civil Veterinary Department free of charge, two to the District Board of
Dera Ismail Khan, and two to that of Bannu, which had previously maintained
no horse or pony stallions. They were not, however, employed at the stud
during the past year.
All districts are now well supplied except Kohat, which maintains only
a single stallion.
The average cost of maintenance was Rs. 241 against Rs. 228 in the
previous year, but it is not clear why the cost in Kohat (Rs. 278) and Peshawar
(Rs. 262( should be more than twice higher than in Dera Ismail Khan
(Rs. 122).
4. There were five donkey stallions at work as in the previous year, but
the results show a marked improvement. Eighty-three pony and 110 donkey
mares were covered against 61 and 60 respectively in the previous year, and
19 mules and 35 donkey foals were dropped as the result of the previous year's
coverings, the corresponding figures in 1902-03 having been only 9 and 13.
In future still better results may be expected, for towards the close of the year