Some Breeds Of Cows Domesticated In India

Livestock Varieties:

Livestock refers to all domestic animals that are used to produce food and other valuable products for man. It includes cattle, buffaloes, sheep, goats and pigs. Livestock may be milk producing or meat providing.

Milk producing livestock

These are milch animals. The milk-producing animals reared in our country are cows, buffaloes, goats and camels. Goat's milk is very nutritious. Goats can be milked anytime of the day. However, the production of goat's milk is far less compared to that of cows and buffaloes. Buffaloe's milk has higher fat content than cow's milk. Buffaloes are the major source of milk in our country. Let us study the rearing of some milch animals.

Cows

India possesses the largest cattle population in the world. But the average milk yield of a cow in India is much less than in many other countries. About 70% of the cattle are dry and the others give an average of just 1-2 litres of milk per day. The following are some breeds of cows domesticated in India.

Table 3: Different kinds of these breeds and their distribution is given in the following table:

Cattle breed	Distribution
Milch Breeds
Gir	Gujarat, Rajasthan
Sahiwal	Punjab, Haryana, Uttar pradesh
Red Sindhi	Andra Pradesh
Deoni	Andra Pradesh
Draught Breeds
Malvi	Rajasthan, Madhya pradesh
Nageri	Delhi, Haryana, Uttar pradesh
Hallikar	Karnataka
Kangayam	Tamil Nadu and other parts of south India
General Utility Breeds
Haryana	Haryana, Bihar, Punjab, Gujarat
	Madhya pradesh
Ongole	Andra pradesh
Kankrej	Gujarat
Tharparkar	Gujarat, Andra pradesh

Draught Breeds:

Draught breeds are basically beasts of burden. They are used for drawing bullock carts, ploughing land and transporting material from one place to another. They are strong and sturdy and give less milk.

Dairy Breeds:

These cows are reared for yielding milk. The bullocks are poor for draught purposes.

Table 4: Milk production during lactation:

Dairy breeds of cow	Average milk production (litres)	Lactation period (days)
Sahiwal	2800	300
Holstein-Friesian	16000	365
Frieswal	5000	326

Dual-purpose breed:

These cows are good milk yielders and the bullocks are good draught workers.

Farmers in villages, domesticate draught and dual-purpose breeds because they fulfil their needs. They provide enough milk to support a family and help in ploughing the fields or drawing water from the wells.

There are 26 breeds of cows in India. They differ in colour, general body build, form of horns, forehead and geographical distribution. We have the indigenous Indian breed, the exotic foreign breed and cross breeds of dairy cows.

A.Indian Breeds:

Red Sindhi:

This cow is medium in size and red in colour with dark and light shades of red.

Red sindhi

Sahiwal:

This is a large, heavily built cow and is of a superior breed.

Sahiwal

Gir:

This breed is found in Gujarat in the Gir forest. This cow is medium in size and is a good milk yielder.

Gir

Other well known breeds are Dangi, Deoni, Tharparker and Haryana. They are dual purpose breeds and fairly good milk yielders.

Foreign Breeds:

The following are some exotic breeds of cows that have been successfully crossbred in India.

• Jersey hails from Island of Jersey, USA

• Holstein Friesian hails from Holland

• Brown Swiss hails from Switzerland

Jersey

Holstein friesian

Brown swiss

Cross Breeds:

The following are some improved breeds of dairy cows that have been developed in our country at the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), Karnal, Haryana.

• Karan Swiss : This is a crossbreed between Brown Swiss and Sahiwal.

• Karan Fries: This is a cross breed between Holstein-Friesian and Tharparkar.

• Frieswal: This is a cross breed between Holstein-Friesian and Sahiwal.

Karan swiss

Karan fries

With cross breeding the yield of milk has increased two or three times more than the yield from Indian cows.