Factors Affecting the Milk Production Traits and Lactation Curve of the Indigenous River Buffalo Populations in Bangladesh

Abstract

Household buffalo dairy farming is gaining popularity nowadays in Bangladesh because of the outstanding food value of buffalo milk as well as the lower production cost of buffalo compared to cattle. An initiative has recently been taken for the genetic improvement of indigenous dairy buffaloes. The present study was carried out to determine the influence of some environmental factors like age, parity, season of calving, calving interval, dry period on the lactation yield, and lactation curve of indigenous dairy buffaloes of Bangladesh. A total of 384 indigenous dairy buffaloes from the 3rd and 4th parity of seven herds under two different agroecological zones covering four seasons were selected and ear tagged for individual buffalo milk recording. A milk yield of 300 days (MY300d) was calculated following the International Committee for Animal Recording (ICAR) and the data were evaluated using the generalized linear model (GLM). In production traits, the mean of calculated lactation period (CLP), calculated lactation yield (CLY), and milk yield of 300 days (MY300d) of the overall population were 267.28 days, 749.36 kg, and 766.92 kg, respectively, whereas calving interval (CI) and dry period (DP) as reproductive traits were 453.06 days and 185.78 days, respectively. The season of calving, age of buffalo cows, population or herd, agroecological zone, calving interval, and dry period had significant effects on production traits (p p p p p p < 0.001). Positive and high correlation was found within milk traits and reproduction traits, but correlation was negative between milk traits and reproduction traits. Therefore, these non-genetic factors should be considered in the future for any genetic improvement program for indigenous dairy buffaloes in Bangladesh.

Keywords

• Bangladesh
• buffalo
• lactation yield
• calving interval
• dry period