Dear all my lovely people, there are various aspects
regarding which we should be very careful while choosing our cows. A lot of
young farmers who don’t have any or much experience regarding dairy farming,
make a lot of irrevocable mistakes while selecting their cows. I did too. Due
to those mistakes they suffer losses and then surrender under the pressure of
cash crunch and depression. I made it through that stage but a lot of our
friends aren’t that fortunate. So at least I have the moral obligation to tell
you people a few things regarding how to avoid those mistakes, which I
couldn’t, but our future dairypreneurs can, from now on, without suffering any
losses.
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| The best step by step guide to choose a better milking cow for your Dairy. |
Steps to be followed
1. The first and foremost thing while buying cows is that
you should have adequate knowledge about the breed of the cows. In India,
generally people only have one notion that either the cow is Desi or American.
But actually there are many breeds of cows of which some are pure breeds and
some are crossbreeds.
For e.g. if we talk
about Indian pure breeds, then the best of them are namely the lal sindhi,
sahiwal, tharparkar, rathi, Gir.
There are many more
varieties but these are the best Indian breeds. Out of all of these, Gir is the
best with the best milk yielding capacity. The Gir has been used extensively
for making hybrid varieties of cows all over the world and mainly Brazil.
The fat content and the genetic signature of all these
Indian breeds is mind blowing as well as they are well accustomed to our
country’s weather and are almost disease proof, but the main problem with these
breeds is their very long dry period. If you are going to buy it for personal
purpose then they are the excellent choice, but, if you have to purchase them
for commercial purpose, then they are not profitable at all.
Now if we talk about the foreign pure exotic breeds available
in India, then the most popular one’s is the Holstein Friesians (HF). There are
also The Brown Swiss, Jersey, Fleckvieh, etc. But HF’s are the best due to
their high milk yielding capacity. Now the problem with the foreign exotic
breeds is that they aren’t accustomed to our harsh Indian environment. So if
you buy a pure exotic breed then you will have to ensure proper arrangements
regarding the housing and feeding and what not of the cow, so that the cow
feels as comfortable as possible.
Taking care of pure breeds is easy only in their native regions,
but not in foreign places, where they aren’t accustomed to live. There is a
high risk of them falling ill, as well as it requires a lot of expenditure to
make the proper arrangements for them.
So, my point is that, you should choose hybrid varieties of
cows for dairy purposes in India. The benefit of hybrid varieties is that they
have qualities of both the Indian indigenous breed bull and also the exotic
breed mother. Therefore, they can withstand the harsh temperatures prevailing
in India, without getting sick and also have high milk yielding capacity and
additionally less dry period thus, escalating the profits.
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| Dairy cows and their quality check. |
2. The second thing that you should keep in mind while
selecting cows is that you should purchase them from areas nearby you as much as
possible. The reason being is that the cows living near your geographical
vicinity will be already accustomed to the climate of your area, so you would
not have to make special arrangements or take special care of that cow.
Sometimes people buy
cows from areas having totally different climate than their own area. This
brings a sudden drop in the milking capacity of the cow, and can also
additionally hinder the health of the cow because the cow isn’t able to cope up
with the sudden change in the climate. The farmer then has to take adequate measures
(medical/infrastructural) for the recovery of the cow as well as its milk
capacity. This adds up to the loss of the farmer.
3. Now, the next important thing, which you should keep in
mind while getting a cow from any seller is that “NEVER EVER BELIEVE WHAT THE
SELLER TELLS YOU”. Always remember this one thing, if you want to be successful
in dairy business. Every time you visit a seller, that should be right before
the milking time, whether he be a peasant or a professional seller, first of
all THAT SHOULD BE A SURPRISE FOR HIM SO THAT HE DOESN’T GET ANY TIME TO TRY A
TRICK OR TWO ON THE COW FOR TEMPORARILY INCREASING THE MILK FOR THE TIME BEING.
P.S. There are ways to do so, which we will discuss in my upcoming articles.
Now have a look at the cow closely.
Just look at the size of the udder, the milk vein(the
thicker the vein, the larger the milk yield), the level of the teats(it should
be either equal or the front teats should be slightly larger than the rear
ones).
Always take your personal doctor whenever you go to buy a
cow. He will not only tell you about the
various statistics of the cow but he will also help you to take a wise decision
too.
4. Whenever you purchase a cow, then you should
make sure that you have the same feed present in your dairy as was given to the
cow before. This is important because a sudden change in the diet of the cow
can cause a sudden drop in her milk production as well as it also hinders the
metabolism of the cow. Therefore, feed the cow with the older feed along with
the new feed (in small quantity) for a few days and gradually start increasing
the new feed day by day until the cow gets accustomed to it and relishes it.
After that switch over completely to your own feed.
5. One last, but the most
important thing, which you have to keep in mind is that “NEVER PURCHASE A COW
WHICH HAS EITHER HAD A DELIVERY RECENTLY (IMMEDIATELY TO 15 DAYS) OR IS GOING
TO HAVE ONE SHORTLY (WITHIN THE NEXT 2 TO 10 DAYS).” There are various reasons
behind this concept, which we will discuss in my next article.
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