Productive and reproductive performance of cattle and buffaloes reared under farmers’ management in differential dairy progressive states in India

Abstract

The productive and reproductive performances of dairy animals have direct effect to milk production and profitability of dairy enterprise. The present study was carried out to analyse the productive and reproductive performance of cattle and buffaloes reared under farmers’ management in three states of differential dairy progress in India. Haryana, Maharashtra and Odisha states were purposively selected from highly, moderately and least dairy progressive states, respectively. The total sample size was 900 containing 300 dairy farmers from each state. The finding shows that the productive and reproductive performances of buffalos in Haryana are better than Maharashtra and Odisha. The productive and reproductive performances of Crossbred were found better in Haryana as well as Maharashtra than Odisha. In Haryana, very few farmers reared Indigenous cattle but the performances were better than Maharashtra and Odisha. The better performance of Haryana may be due to being home track of elite Murrah buffalo, Tharparker and Sahiwal breeds of Indigenous cattle, agro-climatic situations, veterinary services and managerial skills of dairy farmers. To improve the productive and reproductive performance of dairy animals in the moderately progressive (Maharashtra) and least progressive (Odisha) states efforts should be focused on breed improvement, better veterinary infrastructure and enhance the managerial skills of the farmers