Productive and Reproductive Performance of Indigenous Milch Cows under Different Herd Structure of Gaushalas

Abstract

Background: The present investigation was carried out to study the “productive and reproductive performance” of Indigenous Milch Cows reared under Gaushalas. This study describes productive and reproductive performance of milch cows through onsite observation and interviews with structured questionnaires of 30 (no.) Gaushalas randomly selected from 10 districts of Haryana. Methods: The total 30 Gaushala in 10 districts of Haryana were studied, which were rearing more than 34,279 indigenous cows (mostly Hariana and Sahiwal cow). These Gaushalas were divided into three categories based on the total number of animals present in Gaushalas as small (100-500 animals), medium (501-1000 animals) and large size Gaushalas ( greater than 1000 animals). To assess the productive performance of the milch cows, milk yield per day (MY/D), lactation length (LL) and lactation yield (LY) were utilized as indicator traits. In addition, age at first calving (AFC), service period (SP), number of services per conception (NSPC) and calving interval (CI) were considered as an indicator of the reproductive performance traits. Result: It was observed that the average milk yield per day and lactation yield in large size gaushala were significantly (P less than 0.05) higher than the medium size Gaushalas and small size Gaushalas. Large Gaushalas had a significantly higher lactation length (P less than 0.05) than small size Gaushala. The average service period, number of services per conception and calving interval in large size Gaushalas were significantly (P less than 0.05) lower as compared to small size Gaushalas. From the above finding, it could be concluded that the productive and reproductive performance were better in large size Gaushalas.