96 Present address: 1 MSc Research Scholar (sanjitndri@rediffmail.com), 2,3 Scientist (sanjit.ndri@gmail.com, sanchita.bckv@gmail.com), 4 Principal Scientist (ipc.email.07@gmail.cpm), 7 Head (kskadian @rediffmail.com), Division of Dairy Extension; 5 Senior Scientist (bhakat.mukesh@gmail.com), Livestock Production and Management; 6 Principal Scientist (chandelbs@rediffmail.com), Division of Dairy Economics, Statistics and Management. Drought may be defined as an extended period that is a season, a year or more of deficient rainfall relative to the statistical multi-year average for a region. Simply, drought is a period of drier than normal conditions that lead to water- related problems. If dry weather persists and water supply related problems increase, then, the dry period can be called a drought (Nagarajan 2010). India Metrological Department defines that when an area receives rainfall less than 75 percent of its normal rainfall, it is considered as drought; if rainfall deficit is between 26–50%, it is moderate drought; and if rainfall deficit exceed 50%, it will be under severely drought (IMD 2002). Again, the areas, where drought has occurred in at least 20% of the years examined are classified as drought prone area (IMD 2002). India has a long drought history (FAO 2013, Mishra and Singh 2010, and World Bank 2003). Bihar is a predominant disaster prone state of India. Large areas in Bihar have suffered moderate to severe droughts in four out of five years from 2009 to 2013. The period from 2009 to 2013 has been the driest continuous five-year period in more than a hundred years for which Indian Journal of Animal Sciences 88 (3): 356–364, March 2018/Article https://doi.org/10.56093/ijans.v88i3.78378 Coping mechanisms adopted by the livestock dependents of drought prone districts of Bihar, India RANDHIR KUMAR GOSWAMI 1 , SANJIT MAITI 2 , SANCHITA GARAI 3 , S K JHA 4 , M BHAKAT 5 , B S CHANDEL 6 and K S KADIAN 7 ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana 132 001 India Received: 7 August 2017; Accepted: 18 October 2017 ABSTRACT Coping mechanisms adopted by the farming community has recently become a subject of increasing importance in climate change research with an objective to reduce the vulnerability of climate sensitive people. The present study was designed to identify and assess the coping mechanisms adopted by the livestock dependents to mitigate the impact of drought on their livestock rearing and livelihood security. A total 240 livestock dependents from three drought prone districts of Bihar were interviewed and an exclusively Drought adaptation Index was developed for this study. The study revealed that 49 adaptation strategies were adopted by the livestock dependents which were further distributed into seven broad categories. Most significant coping mechanisms were feeding of extra crop residues, providing frequent extra clean and fresh feed and water, storage of wheat/rice straw, change in cropping pattern, feeding and milking during cool hours, kept animal in shadow, extra bathing of cattle, feeding of extra concentrate, selling of animals and reducing herd size. The study also established that adoption of coping mechanism was increased significantly with the increase in degree of drought proneness and herd size was the most significant contributor to the higher level of adoption of coping mechanisms. Key words: Bihar, Coping mechanisms, Drought, Livestock dependents we have weather records in Bihar. In 2009, along with many other states of India, Bihar faced severe drought in 26 out of 38 districts. Bihar also faced its fourth drought in 2013 within a span of last 5 years (2009–2013) and it had been declared 33 out of 38 districts as drought affected. Due to huge rainfall deficit during the sowing season in 2013, late transplantation of paddy, acute summer heat, wilting of crops and virtual midseason withdrawal of monsoon (since September witnessed very little or no rain), the total estimated crop damage in the drought affected 33 districts during kharif 2013 was 1,258,974 ha for paddy transplanted and 222,579.5 ha for maize totaling to 1,481,554 ha. The estimated loss of production of rice due to the deficient monsoon in these 33 drought affected districts was 3,618,230 MT. The estimated loss of production of maize was 508,083 MT in 2013 (Anonymous 2014). In India, productivity of the livestock is also depended on rainfed agriculture as crop residues are used as livestock feed. Hence, along with crops, livestock productivity was severely affected due to the feed and fodder scarcity (Syomiti et al. 2015, Udmale et al. 2014 and Rathore 2005). Ultimately, this creates a disaster and affected livelihood of the people of Bihar. To get relief from these disasters, livestock dependents adopted several mechanisms which are found, sometimes, very worthy one. Kattumuri et al. (2015) concluded that farmers adopted several practices to cope with current climate risks which include shifting