Poultry
Compared with the rest of the livestock sector, the poultry industry in India is more scientific, better organized and continuously progressing towards modernization. Breeding and feeding management has improved through education, training, competition, expansion and survival instincts. India is the world's fifth largest egg producer, with a total production of 40 billion eggs per year.
The poultry industry has witnessed several ups and downs in the last 25 years as a result of unplanned growth and a lack of government regulation. Currently, it is growing at the rate of 10 percent in broilers and 6 to 7 percent in layers and is going through a phase of integration in broilers which is likely to change the face of the industry. Although the phenomenon is new, it is expected that there will be very rapid changes towards integration as more farmers find it increasingly difficult to run farms with marginal profits or negative margins. The poultry industry is very modern, with pure-line breeding, the latest vaccines and medicines, environmentally controlled poultry houses, up-to-date processing units, the latest management practices, chicken processing, exports of hatching eggs and excellent feed quality.
Sheep, goats and camels
The sheep and goat sector is mostly in the hands of nomadic tribes and no significant scientific husbandry, rearing and management practices are implemented. Research on breeding and nutrition is being conducted at research institutes and agricultural universities.
Most of the country's camels are located in the desert area of the western part of India, in the states of Rajasthan and Gujarat, bordering Pakistan. Camels are reared by individuals who feed them local ingredients. There is a lack of scientific management practices, genetic studies and scientific feeding practices in camel rearing and the industry survives mostly on the basis of local, long-established knowledge of feeding and breeding. There is, however, a fairly good disease diagnosis and treatment system, with modern medicines and vaccines.
Swine
India is a multilingual, multiracial country whose people hold various religious beliefs. Although the majority of the population is Hindu, there are sizeable minorities of Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsees and others. India also has a large tribal population and is a plural society in which the sentiments of each social and religious group need to be respected for harmony and peaceful coexistence. Thus, most states in India have banned cow slaughter and the beef industry is therefore non-existent. The majority of people disapprove of pork consumption, maybe because of the lack of scientific management on swine farms. Swine reared on the streets are very unhygienic and buyers are always suspicious about the source of pork, so there is no organized pork industry.
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