5 Most Important Things to Know before Starting Cow Farming and Buffalo Farming in India

Cow Farming and Buffalo Farming in India has been carried out by farmers since ages.  Nowadays, new age entrepreneurs are seeing the next big opportunity in this sector.  They must deal with minute details of this business.

Cow Farming and Buffalo farming in India

With the advent of new technologies and government promoting dairy farming in the country, by the way of launching new schemes and other tax benefits, cow and buffalo farming is seeing new rays of light. The dairy farmers in the country are now more equipped with new machinery, new medicines, and new veterinary clinics and also more aware about the new schemes launched for their benefits by the government. Most of the dairy farms in India are situated in rural areas where the farmers are poor and have little resources to convert their home businesses into profitable ones. For the purpose of educating these farmers and to convert their home run small businesses into big corporate farms, Government of India has launched various schemes, which have already been discussed in the previous article (link of article). Government also holds various awareness camps and other crash courses in the villages to highlight the benefits of dairy farming and also to demonstrate how to make the business more profitable and thus more lucrative.

We all know that dairy farming in India saw new heights at the time of “White Revolution” led by Dr. Varghese Kurein. The revolution became the guiding lamp towards making India one of the largest producers of milk and milk products in the world.

As per http://www.drkurien.com/white_revolution:

“Operation Flood started the White Revolution in India and made our country self-sufficient in milk and this was achieved entirely through the cooperative structure. Today around 12 million farmers in more than 22 states across the country own around 250 dairy plants handling around 20 million litres of milk a day. This is a remarkable achievement.”

Any entrepreneur who wishes to join this business has certain questions in his mind; regarding the investment, land requirement, loan requirement or even about the milch animals that he should buy to start the business. In certain cases, where the dairy farmers are already having a small scale business/ home run business, they have some basic  knowledge about how to run a dairy farm or which animals to buy or what they have to look for in an animal, before investing in them. But for a new entrepreneur, it is important to prepare well in advance and do his home work before making a commitment. Cow and buffalo farming may look easy or lucrative from a distance but like every other business, dairy farming has also got its pitfalls. Having said that, one can’t help but wonder what are these pitfalls or what are the areas of concern that a new dairy farmer/any dairy farmer must consider before making an investment. The frequently asked questions about dairy farming are given below:

1. Whether to start a cow farm or a buffalo farm?
2. What should be the size of the herd?
3. Do I have to straight away make a huge investment?
4. Should I go for “Desi” breeds of cows and buffaloes or imported ones?  What breeds are readily available in the market?
5. What should I look for in an animal before making an investment?

 

To put these questions to a rest, let’s answer all of them one by one:

Whether to start a cow farm or a buffalo farm? What should be the ideal size of the herd? Do I have to make a huge investment?

 

The captioned questions are actually of relative nature. Whether to start a cow farm or a buffalo farm depends upon a number of factors such as demand in the market, availability of a particular type of milk or milk product in the market (based on cow milk/buffalo milk), market segmentation, nutritional value of the end product, price of the end product etc.

A budding entrepreneur may start dairy farming business with only cows, only buffaloes or a combined herd of both depending upon the above stated conditions. Now, if we talk about the size of the herd, it majorly depends upon the investment that a dairy farmer wants to make towards the farm. A dairy farmer may be started even with few animals in the beginning such as 5 cows or 5 buffaloes or some cows and some buffaloes. It is generally advised to procure atleast 10 milch animals before starting a dairy farm. The number of milch animals may be in hundreds in case the dairy farmer wants to start a farm at corporate level. However, there are certain pre-requisites that a dairy farmer has to maintain before starting a dairy farm such as land, water, electricity, fodder, skilled labour, milking machines/milkmen etc. Before making a huge investment for purchasing the animals, a dairy farmer must do proper budgeting for other requirements also.

The government has launched various schemes for small as well as corporate level dairy farms to ease the load of investment to some extent. The loans are to be processed via a proper channel, where the dairy farmers are required to make applications, submit project reports and get the loan sanctioned. Most of these schemes are under the purview of “National Dairy Development Board” and sanctioned by NABARD. The interested farmers may click on the link to know more about these schemes ( link of the article)

Should I go for “Desi/ Indigenous” breeds of milch animals or “Imported” breeds? What breeds are readily available in the market?

There are a number of good desi/indigenous breeds of cows and buffaloes that our country boasts about. These cows and buffaloes are readily available in the market and already very well adapted to the climatic conditions of the country. But at the same time many dairy farmers prefer imported milch animals over indigenous breeds as they generally produce more milk.

It is generally advisable to a new dairy farmer to start a dairy farm with cross bred milch animals, may it be cows or buffaloes. Half-bred cows and buffaloes are good producers of milk when fed properly under a suitably designed nutrient filled diet. The farmers may gradually increase their farms by upgrading these half-bred cows or buffaloes by crossing them with imported breeds. Within 2-3 generations, the animals can be upgraded upto 75 %. Further with the help of new technologies like “SEXED SEMEN”, it is even possible to produce off-springs of the desired gender and inherited qualities. (https://powergotha.com/en/tag/sexed-semen/)

 

 

Some of the popular milch animal breeds that a dairy farmer may opt for are:

Desi/Indigenous cow breeds:

S. No.	Name	Origin	Average Milk Production per lactation
1	Hallikar	Karnataka	542 kg
2	Kangayam	Tamil Nadu	540 kg
3	Red Sindhi	Pakistan All parts of India	1840 kg
4	Tharparkar	Pakistan(Sind)	1749 kg
5	Vechur	Kerala	561 kg
6	Sahiwal	Punjab/Haryana	1600 kg
7	Gir	South Katiwar	900-1600kg

 

Exotic cow breeds:

S. No.	Name	Native Breed	Average Milk Production per lactation
1	Brown Swiss	Switzerland	5000 kg
2	Holstein Friesian	Holland	7200-9000 kg
3	Jersey	British  Isles	5000-8000 kg

 

Cross breed of cows:

S. no.	Name	Origin	Average Milk Production per lactation
1	Sunandini	Kerela	2500 kg
2	Taylor	Patna	2000 kg
3	Karan Swiss	Karnal	3500 kg
4	Karan Fries	Karnal	3400 kg
5	Frieswal	New Delhi	3500-4000 kg

 

Popular Desi/Indigenous and Cross breed of buffalo:

 

S. No.	Name	Origin	Average Milk Production per lactation
1	Murrah	Haryana/Punjab	1500-2000 kg
2	Nili Ravi	Punjab	1500-1850 kg
3	Bhadawari	UP/MP	800-1000 kg
4	Jaffarabadi	Gujarat	1000-1200 kg
5	Surti	Gujarat	900-1300 kg
6	Mehsana	Gujarat/Maharashtra	1200-1500 kg
7	Nagpuri	Maharashtra	700-1200 kg
8	Godavari	Godavari	1200-1800 kg
9	Toda	Tamil Nadu	700 kg
10	Pandharpuri	Maharashtra	1790 kg

 

What should I look in an animal before making an investment?

Whenever a dairy farmer is trying to acquire milch animals for his farm, it is very important to make sure that the animal is healthy. Procuring an unhealthy animal may not only cause a financial cause but may also result in transmitting contagious diseases to other farm animals, in case it is exposed to the other animals at the farm. So the question arises, what are some of the basic things a buyer must notice before investing in the animal?

A dairy farmer may demand the vaccination chart of the animal that he is buying. Half the battle is already won if the animal is timely vaccinated as it decreases the chances of an animal contracting various diseases. Also, it is important to do a survey regarding the price of the breed that you are interested in purchasing as exotic breeds are generally expensive as compared to the indigenous breeds. Further, it is often seen that milch animals are injected with “oxytocin” at the time of sale to which increases their milk production for a while but after that the animal goes dry. While investing in an animal, a dairy farmer may do a quick physical examination as well as history check and take the following things into consideration:

Ancestral History: Before making an investment, the dairy farmer must ask the seller about the ancestral history of the animal. Most of the times, sellers maintain a record book about the animals they intend to sell. This gives an idea about the genetic qualities and the milk production capacity of a milch animal to the buyer.

Age: Most of the times, a cow or buffalo loses its ability to produce milk by the age of 10 to 12 years. It is advisable to a dairy farmer to buy a younger animal, as they would be able to produce more off springs. The best way to check the age of an animal is by examining its teeth. Generally, by the age of 2 years a cow would have 8 permanent teeth and 8 milk teeth and by the age of 5 years the number for both permanent teeth and milk teeth would double. It is important to get a younger animal because by the time of delivering third or fourth off spring, its milk yield would be at its peak and it will decrease as the time passes.

Fertility: Good fertility rate is considered to be an indicator of good milk producing animal. Generally good fertility cattle would have one off-spring per year. Also, the buyer must check the veterinary records to check for any miscarriages or problems while in pregnant or while in labour.

 

Physical Features: The buyer may check the following physical features at the time of buying a milch animal:

Size: The size or height and weight of the animal should match its age. The animal should neither be too fat nor malnourished.

Mobility: The animal should be moving swiftly without any limping or reluctance.

Ears: Ears should be clean , tick free and animal should be attentive and responsive to sound.

Eyes: Clear eyes without any discharge or gooey substance oozing out of the eyes.

Udders: Full shaped udders with prominent milk veins sitting forward. The milk stream should be straight and the udders shouldn’t move sideways, too much while moving.

Breathing: The breathing of the animal should be normal. The animal shouldn’t be panting or gasping for air. Also there shouldn’t be too much noise while breathing. Wheezing is generally not a good sign.

Demeanor: The animal should be calm but attentive. A healthy milch animal is neither lethargic nor hyperactive.

Coat: A shiny coat generally indicates a good health. The coat of the animal should be tick and lice free.

The smallest details, if kept in mind, before the investment may help the dairy farmers in making an informed choice and saving a lot of money as well as unnecessary man hours put in the business. All the necessary details, as elaborated above, need to be kept in mind while making decisions with respect to the choice of the breed of cattle, size of herd etc. Once major decisions like size of herd and quality of cattle go in the right direction, the other decisions like fodder, vaccination etc., which are pre-dominantly settled by the scientific advances may be catered by the experts in the fields. If a person keeps all these factors in mind, he may be at the lowest risk of committing any mistakes and eventually, after being in the field for some time, one may develop acumen and become efficient in picking up cattle/buffaloes for his dairy farm. To sum up, it can be said that all apprehensions of committing a mistake or a decisions going wrong can be confronted when the person is having adequate knowledge of the field.