The best breed of Buffalo – Murrah

• Murrah breed of buffalo is also known as the pride of Haryana or black gold.
• It is a milk type animal.
• The Murrah is the most important Indian breed of buffalo.
• It is the most efficient producer of milk, not only in the India but probably in the world.
• Bulls of this breed are used extensively for up-grading inferior stock.

General Information

1. Species: Buffalo
2. Synonyms: Delhi, Kundi, Kali.
3. Habitat: Central Haryana & Delhi
4. Breeding tract: Hissar, Rohtak, Jind, Gurgaon Districts of Haryana, Nabha and Patiala Districts of Punjab & Delhi.
5. Main utility: Milk and Meat for food, Draught power for work.
6. Origin: India
7. Distribution: Azerbaijan, Brazil, Colombia, China, Ecuador, Guatemala, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Viet Nam

 Phenotypic traits

1. Colour: Jet black
2. Number of Horns: 2
3. Shape of Horns: Tightly curved in a spiral form. Short in size.
4. Visible characteristics: Jet black color, tightly curled horns.

		Male	Female
5.	Height (Avg. cm)	142	133
6.	Body length (Avg. cm)	150	148
7.	Heart Girth (Avg. cm)	220	202
8.	Weight (Avg. Kg)	567	516
9.	Birth Weight (Avg. Kg)	32	30
10.	Length (Avg. cm)	150.2	148.6

Physical Characteristics

1. Body: Sound built, heavy and wedge shaped.
2. Head: Comparatively small.
3. Face: Comparatively long.
4. Neck: Comparatively long.
5. White markings on face and leg extremities may be there, but are not generally preferred.
6. Eyes: Should not be walled i.e. the cornea should not have whiteness.
7. Tail: Long reaching up to fetlock joint with black or white switch up to 8.0 inches.
8. Horns: Different from other breeds of buffaloes; short, tight, turning backward and upward and finally spirally curving inward. The horns should be somewhat flattened. As the age advances the horns get loosened slightly but spiral curves increases.
9. Limbs: Comparatively short but strong built.
10. Skin: Soft, smooth with scanty hairs as compared to other buffaloes.
11. Udder: Fully developed, drooping.
12. Teats: Equally distributed over the udder but hind teats are longer than fore teats. Cylindrical forms of the teats are most common in the Murrah breed. The front teats are, on average, 5.8 cm to 6.4 cm long and their diameter is approximately 2.5 cm to 2.6 cm. Respective figures for the hind teats are 6.9 cm to 7.8 cm and 2.6 to 2.8 cm.
13. Loin: Broader and sliding forward.

 Management

1. Management System: Semi-Intensive
2. Mobility: Stationary
3. Feeding of adults: Grazing Fodder and Concentrate
4. Housing: Buffaloes are kept in mixed type of housing system. Mostly they are tied to a tree or a pole in the open, but shelter is provided during extreme weather conditions. Houses are well ventilated and mostly made up of a pucca wall with kutcha floor.
5. Feeding system: Animals are stall fed, can also be let loose for grazing.
6. Feeds to be fed: Berseem, oats and mustard are the green fodder in rabi; and sorghum, pearl millet and cluster bean in kharif. Commercial feed can be fed anytime of the year.
7. Feeding of concentrates: 1kg/2kg of milk.
8. Feeding of roughages: 1/10^th of body weight per day.
9. Milking: should be done twice a day, however thrice a day milking gives higher milk yield.
10. Milking practice: full hand milking should be done. Avoid knuckling.
11. Milk let down time: averages 2 minutes but may be as long as 10 minutes.

Performance traits

	Average	Minimum	Maximum
Age at first calving (Avg. months)	43.4	39.9	54.2
Calving interval (months)	14.9	14.1	19.9
Lactation length (days)	305 (standardized)	–	–
Milk yield per lactation (kg)	1752	1003	2057
Milk fat (%)	7.3	6.9	8.3
Daily lactation in peak period (kg)	15.7	6.85	31.5 (Record)
Dry period (days)	89	75	98

Peculiarity of the breed

• This breed has spread to almost all parts of the world and is being bred either in pure form or is being used for grading up local buffaloes.
• It has been exported to many developing countries and is bred there.
• Murrah buffaloes performs well under hot semi-arid and also in humid climatic conditions.

Major problems associated with health of Murrah buffaloes

1. Reproductive problems: repeat breeders, anestrous, metritis.
2. Udder problems: poor udder development, milk let down problem, mastitis and teat defects.
3. Locomotive disorders
4. General debility: poor health, weakness.

Price range

• High merit: upto Rs. 25 lakhs.
• Low merit: upto Rs. 3 lakhs (Avg. Rs. 85,000/- to Rs. 177,000/-).

From where to purchase?

1. Gupta Dairy Farm: Address; plot No. 41-42, Govind Colony, near water tank, Doon Valley College Road, Jundla Gate, Karnal-132001, Haryana. Phone no. 09416031427. Website: www.guptadairyfarm.com, email: [email protected]

2. Utsav Dairy Farm: Ganda Bhai Chaudhary, Address: near Talab, Punasan Road, Post Mewad, Taluka and District Mehsana-382710, Gujarat. Phone no.: 09978588952, 02762285691.
3. Model Dairy Farm: Prateek Vaish (VP-Operations). Address: Naramau, GT Road, near ALIMCO, Kanpur-209217, UP.
4. Bharathi Dairy Farm, Nellore, Andhra Pradesh.
5. Khurana Dairy Farm, Rohtak, Haryana. Mobile Number :+91-9215450001 / 9215430001 / 9215450003

 

 

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