Friends, in the last episode we have got an idea of suitability of BosIndicusverses Exotic Bos Taurus.

Let’s find out which cattle breed we ought to rear. Do share with me in the following Analysis.

 

Measures Indian cattle Exotic cattle
Strength Higher Fat% in milk

Heat & Disease tolerant,

Versatile (withstands shortage of grass & food)

Can be bred pure or up to Full blood.

Good Work animals.

Better milk yield

Docile

Prolific (calf a year & early puberty)

Good feed efficiency

 

Weakness 1. Less milk. 2. Not so docile. 3. Latepuberty. 4. Lengthier calving interval5. Hard milker.        6. Low feed efficiency in some. Pure cannot be kept.

Lower fat %

Opportunity Manipulative efforts can curb some of the challenges. Gov. Paternity available. Love for A2 milk, organic milk…… Nil
Threat Recessive genes that do not give performance as expected, deformed calves from some bulls. 1.Incurable diseases& stress, 2. Possibility of poor veterinary. 3. Costly treatment

 

What does these mean? What are the impacts? What can we infer from these?

  1. Higher the fat higher the price. Here the short fall due to high milk quantity of exotic cows almost gets compensated through higher fat content of Indian cow milk.
  2. We can keep only Cross Bred (CB or mixed cattle) as per Gov.Policy. It may range fromIndian: Exotic 50:50; may be 37.5 /62.5 and from this year in Odisha one can go for 25:75%. If every cattle in India has to be at least 25% Indian, then Why not pure Indian? At least we can more A2 milk!

When we have meagre resources to invest,we can compromise on time and take up Dairy farming from our own Deshi cattle, Upgrade them with an Indian milk Breed like GIR, Sahiwal..& get a FULL BLOOD herd of Gir or Sahiwal in 10 /12 years. SIMPLE!  (How! I’ll deal in a few days).  But this is not possible for Jersey or Holstein.

  • Selling a male calf or a bullock calf (Steer),as a farm produce, is a boon to farm economy; only if,a good price is got. This is possible with Indian cattle. Calf rearing was a tradition &profession. It will be easy to rear male calves by the farm or on sharing basis with a neighbor.
  1. While Jersey is docile and most HF are docile, some of the Indian cows may not be docile especially Red Sindhi.It remains a challenge. Hard milker are seen which can be overcome using a milking machine
  2. Prolificacy depends on two characteristics 1. Early maturity 2. Less calving interval.Sahiwal, Gir have slightly more than HF which can further be reduced by good management practices and special Manipulative techniques.
  3. Again feed efficiency (feed required for production of 1 liter of milk) can be brought near to Jersy, HF by modern management practices and special Manipulative techniques. (I’ll discuss later)
  • Considering the Threats remaining in both sides; it is bearable in Indian but the incidence of diseaseswhich have no or inefficient vaccine and no complete curealters the game in favour of Indian breeds.

Summary:-We can afford to get a less profit but can’t bear to be debtor turning to defaulter and finally a bankrupt  insolvent.Other reasons to go for Indian breeds is a craze for Cow Urine Dung utility. People’s love for A2, Organic milk. Cow urine is marketable now.These are opportunities and we must bank upon.

Say 100 lit HF milk will have 3.5 % Fat (ghee) say sell to FEDOM. Farmer will sell milk in liter. They will count in KG. So 100 lit=say 102kg will give them roughly 3.6 kg ghee. The cost of milk@22=2200 Cost of fat @ 600 is 2160. When it comes to 4% (Jersey) price is@25=2500, fat 4.2 kg=2520 so on higher the fat higher the company’s profit. We get very little for SNF. Thus we see: higher Fat % counts.

 

Dr. Ranjit Dash, 11.5.2017.  For GOG only. Please feedback to ranjitdash1957@gmail.com  THANK YOU RDash