Fig 1.
Location of the study area and villages.
Fig 2.
A group of male farmers undertaking a proportional piling exercise discuss the distribution of stones to indicate the importance of various animal health conditions.
Fig 3.
During a proportional piling exercise, a female farmer re-distributes some of the stones laid down by her neighbours to reflect her opinions on the relative importance of various animal health conditions.
Table 1.
Likely diagnoses of locally named conditions.
Fig 4.
Pie charts showing results of proportional piling exercises to indicate the perceived relative importance of animal health conditions for each village A-J.
Notes: Village C wanted to rank conditions initially, then re-ordered them following the piling exercise. Village D discussed Ranikhet, a disease of chicken and ducks, at length during the open discussion, but did not want to include Ranikhet in the proportional piling exercise as they identified themselves as cattle and goat farmers. However, when asked to rank the conditions considering the financial impact, they placed sagolay bohonta in position 1 and Ranikhet in position 2. Conditions were re-ranked, but piling results were not altered by the group. Village F: Undertook the piling exercise based on prevalence, then when they saw the results, completely re-ranked based on disease impact, but did not wish to repeat piling exercise. Village H: Undertook the piling exercise, discussed the results, then re-did the piling exercise from the start.
Fig 5.
Total of proportion piling scores to indicate the perceived relative importance of animal health conditions for all ten villages combined.
Total number of stones used is 1000.
Fig 6.
Frequency of animal health challenges considered of importance by meeting groups (n = 10) and raised for discussion by interview participants (n = 18).