Deshi breeds
Rarity
Artificial insemination and govt promotion of foreign breed has made finding 100% pure cows very difficult, since a cow’s generation changes in only 3-4 years, and it has been more than 3 decades now when the govt first started promoting foreign breeds.. now we find pure breeds only in remote areas where due to logistical and poverty reasons, govt couldn’t reach. Got contacts of a couple of researchers and doctors / breed specialists , taking their help in confirming breed purity
Tharparkar
Because of the desert, which was ironically marshland millions of years ago, the farmers stricken in poverty are unable to take care of the cows so they suffer a lot, eat whatever the desert offers and the amazing thing is they still give about 10 liters of milk a day.
Deshi hybrids
राठी इति जातिः देशीयगवां संकरा जातिः। थारपारकर साहीवाल रैड सिन्धी इत्यासाम्। एवं वैज्ञानिका वदन्ति। अतः प्रकृतौ संकरत्वेनापि नूतना जातयः स्वयमुपद्यन्ते।
Hybrids
would hybrids which are both hardy and high-yielding come ahead? do such exist?
Govts are trying, haryana govt made a cow haridhenu, which was 68% HF and rest sahiwal + haryanvi , the project’s success is unclear as of now.
Preferance
I’ve thought of maintaining 4 breeds of native cows, sahiwal rathi tharparkar and hariyanvi, using 4 cows of each breed as base.
deshi-preference causes
very interesting. curious if you could list your reasons for preferring deshi cows ( our steppe ancestors likely shifted to it after invasion)
My reasons are not science based , only experience (might even be confirmation bias, I can’t say) and practicality.
Seems that indian breeds are going to be preserved for sentimental/ fashion reasons (like pure breed foreign dogs) while hybrids will dominate. right?
Yes.. because everyone wants money only.. Indian breeds can’t compete on that without counting in the long/whole lifecycle term.. if the farmers are forced to keep their cows till they die, they’ll jump back
Practicality
Desi cows being have infinite tolerance of weather and disease resistance when compared to videshi ones.. from 46-47 degrees (and even higher in deserts) to almost 0 degree, they don’t need any extra effort, fans in summer or jackets in winter. They give many more children , as much as twice, so even though per lactation period milk yield is about half of videshi , but over a lifetime it is same + we get more calves (male calves are now though not of much use).
They don’t eat even half of what an average HF eats, so a lot of money is saved when you calculate over the whole year
Also, while the quantity of milk is lesser, the density is higher, you get more ghee from same amount of desi cow milk, if fed well on grains, I’ve seen myself, like our cows do, their milk being dense at par with buffaloes, this is unacheivable in videshi cows.
Experience
They look much more beautiful, proportionate body structure, curvy structure looks very pleasing , are smarter / more loving , remember their owners even after years of separation.
They don’t hit humans anywhere close to as much as videshi cows do. Like the incidents of bulls killing people, in all cases I’ve heard it was always a videshi or sankara bull.
Ritual
And yes, as manu says, don’t drink milk of cow which gives milk without vatsa.
Full lifecycle calculation
full lifecycle calculation - why does the videshi lose out?
About half the number of calves it gives. A life cycle for a healthy desi cow is about 20-22 years.
but you also said 2x milk - so should even out?
Maintenance costs na.. + lesser quantity of ghee , but yes , making ghee is a tiring process nowadays
This is really important, the stamina to stay put with a single animal, as I said earlier, 20-22 years is a long time, people want money now, not 5 years later, 1000rs of milk a day vs 4-500. Village people pschyology is much different, here people actually harass each other for even 50rs and the part where I live is one of the richest rural lands of our country.
Non-deshI causes
Given all these advantages, what do other people gain by going for videshi-s?
When you follow the business model of west, you certainly gain monetary terms when you keep foreign cows.
The world record (or India record) for HF cow is about 50 Litres in a day. For Indian breed, it is not even half of this , although emotional Indian breeders would claim anything..
Don’t the miantenance costs offset extra-milk profits?
No. Milk profits are still higher. Also, I think you’ve not counted the adulteration part, adding water to milk. And all of it multiplies with number of cows.
Milk is what, at least 40 rs a liter, suppose a foreign cow gives 20-25 ltr (a min), that is 1000 rs a day w/o adding water. A desi cow wouldn’t give half of it + have to rear the calf as well, the calf also eats, falls sick, needs to be taken care of in summers and winters.
Plus no one actually uses their brains, they do not have I think. In each village there will be a few successful (money wise) foreign cow breeders, the smaller ones just want to copy their model.
Fashion
And some things are just in fashion, for ex. In desi cows also, the milk quantity is similar across most breeds but some breeds sell for much higher costs, for ex. Gir cow has been marketed extremely well by gujarati-s, a pure gir costs 1-1.2 lacs at least.. whereas similar milk producing rathi cow comes at about 30-40k.
Rearing
General difficulties
Who has that much stamina to take care of an animal ? A few bad / dry months and they just throw her out.
New Families can’t keep animals now, even in villages, lesser number of children + spreading of education, and even the uneducated new brides and young men don’t want to get involved in this mess.
You can’t go for vacation as you’re only at max 4-5 adults in the house , so things are being done in a more organized way where small profits combine to give bigger results.
Milk production, cattle rearing , farming will never be organized because
- these people don’t have brains
- land these days is an insurance for bad times so no one will give up for even a day.
Water + land fertility + proximity to Delhi gives unmatched advantage compared to the rest of the country.
People earning in the city living in villages is a different thing - which I have seen at some places in south, people dependent solely on farm income is another , so I’m speaking from the latter perspective. Western UP + punjab + haryana , these function/behave similarly in political and agricultural domains.
Western model
Take milk as long as she gives, when she doesn’t give milk, take meat, Indians for religious reasons can’t take meat - so they just oust the cow and her calf when the milk is not enough.
deshI
And this is also an advantage , desi cow you need to rear the calf as well. The process of taking milk from her begins with letting her calf feed first. Only then she lets milk into the stana-s , otherwise no matter how hard you draw the stana-s, there won’t be any milk.
This happens when you feed her well even when she’s not lactating or not pregnant, what villagers do is send her out into the fields bcs they don’t have money and mindset, in her dry period, this reduces her health and then ability to bear children.
One more thing about desi cow is that it is incredibly cleanliness conscious. I’ve seen them standing for 30-36 hours on end of their place is not clean , like ours gets muddy when it rains too much, though now we have solved this problem.
Buffaloes
Buffaloes have low hot weather tolerance - so you’d see them always taking a bath in summers. Govt gives cheap electricity so where the ponds have been ruined, farmers will just turn on the submersible motors and splurge water which is an abundant resource in north India except for rajasthan.
Breeding
भवतां गावो बीजं सम्भोगेनैवाप्नुवन्त्य् उत नालनिवेशनेन?
पूर्वे तु सर्वासामेव नालेन कृतम्
अधुना राठी इति जातीयः वृषभः एकः तरुणत्वं प्राप्तवान् तस्मात् तस्याः जातेः गवां मिथुनेन ।
अन्यासां अग्रिमे वा तदग्रिमे संवत्सरे तथा भवेत्
उपजातिः
उपजाति चिन्तनं कार्य्यं पशुषु। भिन्न प्रकृतयः भवन्ति।
रोगाः भिन्ना
उपचाराणां प्रति भिन्न एव परिणामः।
तथा, यदि देहाकारे महान् भेदः ,
तदा बृहतः वृषभस्य बीजं कनीयसीं गवि प्रवेशने तस्यै क्लेशो भवति।
काचित् जातयः बृहदाकारा भवन्ति काचित् लघ्व्यः।
शुनकेष्वपि एवमेव।
(Theoretically, I’d bet on hybrids being more robust, especially given the present population bottlenecks - lower recessive gene expression. “Inbreeding depression”)
Seems like that. That’s why I’ve thought of using bulls which are in doubt about breed purity , to be used for rathi cows who are already hybrids. But for those from a different breed and pure breed, I’d rather continue their line as it is.
रोगः
evolution भिन्नक्षेत्रेषु भिन्नवातावरणे अभवत् खलु। प्रत्यक्षप्रमाणेन स्वयं दृष्टं यत् तत् वच्मि।
यथा राठीगोषु https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqs_SxYv2Ic अयं रोगः अधिकं भवति ।
हरियाणवी गोषु थनैला/mastitis अधिकं भवति। समाधानमपि भिन्नतया करणीयम्।
रोगमात्रस्य चिकित्सा तु समानमेव परन्तु तया चिकित्सया अग्रे किं प्रभावः भवति तद्द्रष्टव्यम्।
यथा शीतं यदि काचित् धेनुः प्राप्नोति तर्हि
साहीवाल इत्यस्यै अधिकमुष्णं (प्रवृत्त्या न तु तापेन) दत्तं चेत् तदपि कष्टाय
यद्यपि थारपारकर इत्यस्यै अधिकमुष्णमेव दातव्यम्।
अनयोः संकरसन्ततेः का प्रवृत्तिः भवेत् कथं ब्रूमः।