With a view to identifying elite milk producing cows and buffaloes, the Punjab animal husbandry department is all set to launch a new project called ‘Herd Registration of Elite Animals’ to keep online record of all pure-breed animals.
The Punjab government has directed the animal husbandry department to identify all dairy animals, including male and female of both cows and buffaloes, and make a primary registration of animals to properly implement the registration programme.
A veterinary inspector will carry out house-to-house survey as in five villages assigned to him. Once all the animals are identified, the department as part of the second phase will ask all dairy owners to notify their concerned veterinary inspectors or veterinary officers about the delivery time of their cows or buffalos.
To check the breed purity of an animal, the veterinary inspectors will conduct the first milking test between 3 and 14 days of the cow or buffalo’s delivery to check their milk yielding potential.
The inspector will conduct 10 milking test of the animal after 28 days interval to find out the lactation yield.
{{/usCountry}}The inspector will conduct 10 milking test of the animal after 28 days interval to find out the lactation yield.
{{/usCountry}}The purity of animals would be categorised into three different categories by segregating them into the less milk yield category to high milk yield category animals.
All the pure breed animals with their full details will be listed on the website through which anybody can be able to easily find out the animals as per their need instead of finding pure breed animals manually.
The department will also tag a polyurethane laser-printed identification mark on the ear of every registered animal to keep tabs on the change of ownership and their geographical movement.
The identification of animals will also help keep account of physical traits, breed conformity, pedigree, performance, health status, feeding and farm management status of every dairy animal.
The website will not only keep a record of female cows and buffaloes, but it would also have records of cow bulls and buffalo bulls of higher genetic merit and semen quality.
Dr Satpal Singh, deputy director of animal husbandry, Kapurthala, said they have started identifying the animals from all the villages coming in the district.
“This effort will not only help identify pure breed animals but it will also lead to increasing the milk yield by three times in the state,” he said.
There are three major breeds of cows — HF, sahiwal, jersey— while two breeds of buffaloes nili-ravi and murrah in Punjab.