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Livestock raisers and healers throughout the world use traditional veterinary techniques to prevent and treat common livestock diseases. These ethnoveterinary remedies are practical, effective and cheap. They rely on local plants or easily available materials. They reflect centuries of experience and trial-and-error.

The four booklets in this kit contain details on herbal remedies and other ethnoveterinary practices used by stock raisers and healers in South and Southeast Asia.

Three of the four booklets cover ruminants (cattle, buffaloes, sheep and goats), swine and poultry . The fourth booklet contains topics which apply to any of these species.

Each booklet is organized according to easily understandable problems (such as "Skin diseases" or "Diarrhea"). Under each problem, sections briefly describe the symptoms, causes, prevention and treatment of the problem. Treatments are given in simple, recipe-like format to enable non-veterinarians to prepare and use the remedies. Numerous, clear line drawings illustrate key points. Notes indicate in which country each treatment is used.

The manuals were compiled through a 14-day intensive writeshop at the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction involving 20 veterinarians, pharmacologists and livestock raisers from eight countries. Writeshop participants rated each remedy according to whether it was widely used in the field or had been validated scientifically. Only those remedies that the participants were confident would prove useful were included in the manuals.

This kit contains many valuable traditional practices which can serve as low-cost and practical alternatives for rural communities. It is a useful reference for livestock raisers, animal health care practitioners and researchers throughout tropical Asia and other developing countries.