NON-GENETIC FACTORS AFFECTING THE FIRST LACTATION PRODUCTION EFFICIENCY TRAITS IN BUFFALOES-A REVIEW

Abstract

Buffalo has been an integral part of livestock agriculture in Asia over 5,000 years producing milk, meat, draft power and hides. Buffalo is important for draft power and provides up to 30% for agricultural operations. The world population of buffaloes has undergone demographic changes over a period of time in different tropical countries. Due to geographical location and domestic need, riverine buffaloes acquired preponderance over swamp buffaloes across various agro-climatic regions of the country. Buffalo, by and large, remained neglected as compared to cattle by national and international agencies despite its economic status. Approximately, 80% of Indian buffaloes are non-descriptive while the remaining belongs to eight classified breeds. The dairy industry is dependent to a greater extent on level of production and reproduction performance of the animals in India. There are many non-genetic factors like period of calving, season of calving, age of dam etc., which influence the phenotypic expression of production and reproduction traits. Production and reproduction traits are antagonistic to each others. There are many production efficiency traits like Milk yield per day of lactation length (MY/FLL), Persistency (P), milk yield per day of calving interval (MCI) and milk yield per day of age at second calving (MSC) might be thought of as combinations of production and reproduction traits and can be used as selection tool. The productive efficiency performances of buffaloes are determined by milk yield and different reproduction traits. Therefore, production efficiency traits which are based on both production and reproduction traits are the best criteria for the selection and overall improvement