Assessment of production traits and lactation wise economics of buffalo in Punjab state of India

Buffalo is considered as the dairy animal for modern times due to its higher adaptability and productivity in the changing climatic conditions. In India, large part of the milk production comes from small and medium dairy farmers. Buffalo contributes 45.44% to the total milk production in India. With only 3.65% of the total buffalo population of India, Punjab contributes 7.91% of the total buffalo milk production. In Punjab, around 70% milk production comes from small and medium dairy farms with herd size of 2 to 10 animals, another 25% from large/commercial herds and the rest from domestic (1%) and peri-urban dairies (4%), which are concentrated around big cities. In Punjab, buffaloes produce about 56.38% of the total annual milk production in the state. The current study was conducted in three agro-climatic zones of Punjab by selected 90 buffaloes farmers in the district viz. Hoshiarpur, Patiala and Mansa by simple random sampling method. The economics of buffalo was calculated on lactation basis. The average age at 1st calving was 43 months, and inter-calving period was 469 days, lactation length (days) was 281 days, dry period (days) was 188 days, average milk yield (liters/day) was 8.3 lts/day. The lactation-wise total cost of rearing buffalo was highest in 2nd lactation i.e. Rs. 95393 and the net profit was Rs. 52335 in 4th lactation period. Thus, buffaloes contribute positively to the income which makes its rearing beneficial financially.