Paddy plantation affected in Gorkha as lumpy skin takes toll on oxen

GORKHA, July 8: Paddy plantation in Gorkha district has been badly hampered after oxen started getting sick and dying from lumpy skin disease. 

So far, 8,339 animals have been infected with the lumpy skin at 11 local levels in Gorkha, according to the Department of Livestock Services.

The oxen that are primarily used to plow land are dying in cowsheds due to the fatal disease. Bishnu Prasad Panta of Gandaki Rural Municipality-3 in the district lamented that he could not start a plantation after his oxen were taken ill and died subsequently due to the highly contagious viral disease. 

According to him, many bulls and oxen reared by the farmers in Gorkha were taken ill due to the disease. 

Lumpy skin is transmitted to cattle through blood-feeding insects, such as flies or mosquitoes.

Chet Bahadur Gurung, a local farmer, shared that many farmers like him at Ghairung in Sahid Lakhan Rural Municipality were worried about their cattle and paddy plantation both being affected by the disease. "Wherever I go, everyone complains about his/her sick oxen. I have not been able to plant paddy this monsoon in lack of healthy and strong bull," bemoaned Gurung.

A veterinary doctor at the Livestock Service Centre in the district, Dr. Sharmila Kumal, worried that the lumpy skin was spreading rapidly and more and more cattle were succumbing to it.