Dairy Farming: Breeds of cattle and buffalo in India

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Breeds of cattle and buffalo in India

A breed is a group of related animals with similar characters like general appearance, size, features and configuration etc. Often, breeds resemble each other with slight morphological differences, but because of constant inbreeding in one locality, independent breeds have evolved. In general, the cattle from drier regions are well built and those from heavy rainfall areas, coastal and hilly regions are of smaller build. There are total 231 breeds of cattle in the world out of which 26 are in India. Most indigenous cattle breeds in the tropics are multipurpose (milk, meat, draught) and that only a few breeds have good milk potential. Indian cattle breeds of cattle are classified in to three types as under:

a) Milch breeds

b) Dual Purpose breeds

c) Draught breed

a) MILCH BREEDS:

The cows of these breeds are high milk yielders and the male animals are slow or poor workers. The milk production of milk breeds is on the average more than 1600 kg. per lactation. The examples of Indian milch breeds are Sahiwal, Red Sindhi, Gir and Deoni.

b) DUAL PURPOSE BREEDS:

The cows in these breeds are average milk yielder and male animals are very useful for work. Their milk production per lactation is 500 kg to 150 kg. The example of this group are Ongole, Hariana, Kankrej, Deoni, Rathi , Mewathi, Dangi and Nimari.

c) DRAUGHT BREEDS:

The male animals are good for work and cows are poor milk yielders and their milk yield on an average is less than 500 kg per lactation. They are usually white in colour. The example of this group is Hallikar, Amritmahal, Khillari, Bargur, Nagori, Bachaur, Malvi, Kenkatha, Kherigarh, Kangayam, Ponwar, Siri, Gaolao, Krishna Valley.

IMPORTANT INDIGENOUS MILCH CATTLE BREEDS IN INDIA

INDIGENIOUS CATTLE BREEDS OF INDIA

EXOTICDAIRY CATTLE BREEDS IN INDIA

The European breeds of dairy cattle belong to the species of Bos taurus. They are humpless generally large spread with a fine coat, short ears, without a pendulous dewlap. They are less heat tolerant and less disease resistant as compared to Indian cattle, but are superior in milk production, The exotic breeds of cattle have been used in India on a fairly extensive scale with a view to improve the milk yielding capacity of the indigenous cows. The important European breeds of dairy cattle are Holstein Friesian, Brown Swiss, Jersey, Guernsey and Ayrshire.

INDIAN BREEDS OF BUFFALO:

The domestic or water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) belong to the family bovidae, sub-family bovinae, genusbubalis and species arni or wild Indian buffalo. Buffalo are believed to have been domesticated around 5000 years ago in the Indus Valley. The water buffalo can mainly be classified as River (Chromosome no., 2n=50) and swamp type (Chromosome no., 2n=48). The domestication of swamp buffalo took place independently in China about 1000 years later. The movement of buffalo to other countries both east and westwards has occurred from these two countries. Some of the well-known dairy breeds of buffalo found in India and Pakistan are Murrah, Nili-Ravi, Kundi, Surti, Jaffarabadi, Bhadawari, Mehsana, Godawari and Pandharpuri. Despite potential advantages, little attention has been paid to buffalo improvement programs. The buffalo is known as water buffalo. There are number of buffalo breeds in India but true to type and descriptive breeds are Murrah, Jaffrabadi, Niliravi and Mehsana. The swamp buffalo are concentrated mainly in south east China, Myanmar, Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippine, and Vietnam. The skin colour is gray, dark gray to state blue. White animals occur frequently. Animals have swept back horns and are similar in appearance across the countries except the size. The horns grow laterally and horizontally in young animals and curve round in a semi circle as the animals gets older. Animals are massively built, heavy bodied with large belly. The forehead is flat; orbits are prominent with a short face and wide muzzle. They weight from 300 to 400 kg when fully grown. Swamp buffalo are primarily used as work animal in paddy cultivation, for pulling carts and hauling timber in jungles. Milk yield is 1-2 kg per day.

BREEDS: On the basis of regions the well defined buffalo breeds are:

MURRAH GROUP: