Conventional Semen
India is a blessed country when we talk about cattle breeds. Now you must be wondering why? This is because India is privileged with large livestock biodiversity of Cattle, Buffalo, Sheep, Goat etc. having large number of registered breeds compare with any other single country in the World. There are 50 Indigenous breeds of cattle and 17 breeds of buffaloes as yet.
Build over Generations
These Indian cattle breeds have been evolving over generations. So that means they have adapted themselves to harsh conditions, poor fodder coupled with feed, and also made their body resistant to various diseases naturally. The indigenous breeds of cattle are known for their fat and milk production under different agro-climatic conditions and survive on marginal to impoverished fodder resources.
Selection Procedure
The selection procedure of bulls for breeding purposes is followed as below.
- We are maintaining bull mother farm since 1975 for pure exotic breeds of Holstein Friesian (HF) and Jersey for which the Pedigree sheets are being maintained since inception which shows complete history of the animal.
- To maintain the purity as well as generation to generation overall performance, we import pure bred semen and embryos from mother country for breeding the farm animals for producing bull mothers and breeding bulls.
- We have field performance recording programme (FPR) for different Indigenous cattle breeds in their respective breeding tract under which we record dairy characters as well as physical characteristics and bull calves fulfilling the Minimum Standard Protocol (MSP) procure for breeding purpose.
- We also procure High Genetic Merit (HGM) crossbred and Indigenous cattle breeding bulls from National Level Bull Distribution Committee.
- Indian Dairy Cattle breeds like Gir, Sahiwal, Tharparkar, Red Sindhi etc. also procured from Central Cattle Breeding Farms (CCBF).
- Buffalo breeding bulls are sourced from Central Herd Registration Scheme (CHRS).
- We are also in process of applying latest technology like Genomic Selection for selecting the bull calves for breeding purposes.
Takeaway
An experienced farmer will always prefer to bred his animal with semen of high genetic merit bulls which will help him to improve the productivity of animals over the generations.
Semen Availability
If you are someone who is looking for frozen cattle semen then we are your one-stop destination. At BAIF development research foundation, we have verities of cattle semen for supply and these include Holstein-Friesian pure breed, Jersey pure breed, HF Cross, Jersey Cross and indigenous Cattle breeds like Gir, Sahiwal, Tharparkar, Red Sindhi, Rathi, Haryana, Ongole, Amritmahal, Dangi, Khillar, Krishna Valley, Gangatiri, Red Kandhari, Nagori, Nimari, Gaolao, Deoni and buffalo breeds like Murrah, Surti, Jaffarabadi, Bhadavari, Banni, Pandharpuri, Nilli-Ravi, Nagpuri, Mehsana.
Jersey Breed (JR)
Hostein Friesian (HF)
Buffalo breeds that are found in India can be traced back to the Indus valley civilization. This indicates that buffalo breeds in India have been built for over 5000 years. Researchers over the years have reported that the Indus valley civilization has served best for breeds of buffalo because they required moderate rainfall and good converter of agro waste into quality milk.
The best buffalo breeds in India are accountable for their milk and fat production, as they yield more than two times compare to Indian cows. Various online publications have also reported that buffalo breeds in India yield 49 percent milk of the total milk production throughout the country.
Our Best Selection
We source and maintain the best buffalo bulls of various breeds reared for enhancing the milk production and survive under different agro ecosystem from the respective breeding tract of various buffalo breeds. Buffalo breeding bulls are sourced from Central Herd Registration Scheme (CHRS).
Presently we freeze the conventional semen of buffalo breeds like Murrah, Surti, Jaffarabadi, Bhadavari, Banni, Pandharpuri, Nilli-Ravi, Nagpuri & Mehsana .
Semen Collection Buffaloes
Nowadays, the Semen of different buffalo breeds available at conventional Semen Freezing laboratory, which follows all Minimum Standard Protocol (MSP) set by Government of India. The Conventional Buffalo semen in French mini straws containing 20 million sperms in each straws.
Takeaway
The conventional semen of majority of the Indian buffalo breeds is available at single source with affordable price. We have 9 buffalo breed semen available at our semen bank which fulfills the requirement of farmers from various agro-climatic conditions of the country.
Buffalo Breeds
Progeny testing
It is commercially important in animal breeding to determine the true breeding value of an animal especially males which are used extensively for propagation of best germplasm. The extensive use of artificial insemination in domestic animals has helped in increasing the selection intensity on male animals. This selection tool is usually used for characters that are sex-limited and usually with low heritability E.g., milk production in females. A bull cannot be assessed for milk production, however, the performance of their female offspring can be used to determine the use of the animal for future crosses.
What is done in progeny testing?
A progeny test is performed by mating the male with a number of females to produce many progenies in a different environment and over a long time period involving different seasons to nullify the impact of season, management and environment in breeding value estimation. The average performance of the offspring is then found, giving a measure of the male’s respective value to the breeder.
Field progeny testing
The field-based progeny testing is highly required when the selected bulls are to be distributed in a large area to many farmers in different environments. Conducting a field-based progeny testing activity, especially in smallholder production systems require huge resources of both financial and infrastructural like a large A.I. network, robust and dynamic data collection and analysis system and also existing progeny testing programme requires more time hence semen produced from proven sires is always comparatively costlier.
BAIF’s program of progeny testing
This program is now 38 years old. BAIF declared the test evaluation on Holstein X Zebu crossbred bulls with excellent progeny test results. The present program is aimed at evaluating the crossbred bulls at farmer level management under the aggies of ICAR-CIRC, Meerut. BAIF is one of the units in central India along with three other FPT unis of Uttarakhand, Punjab and Keral states. During the period of 2014-2019 another field progeny testing program for HF crossbred bulls are implemented in Uttar Pradesh state under National Dairy Plan-I and post NDP period the programme is being implemented in 38 CDC’s. During NDP project period semen doses of 85 bulls were used for test inseminations and progenies from first bull batch completed their performance and other bulls’ progeny are under milk recording stage.
Semen doses availability
The semen doses of proven sires available with BAIF for HF crossbreed bulls and for such bulls the information on the contemporary comparison (C.C.) relative breeding value (R.B.V.) for milk of the progeny tested bulls is provided in sire directory. The efforts are also being made to evaluate the bulls based on genomic breeding values and in near future semen from gnomically selected bulls will be available for breeding the field animals.