Analysis of Milk Production Parameters of Crossbred Murrah Buffaloes in a Large-scale Buffalo Farm in Southern Sri Lanka

Abstract

Buffaloes are the second largest source of milk supply in Sri Lanka; however, studies have reported that buffalo farming operates below its potential. It is worth analyzing the status of buffalo production in regular time intervals. The objective was to analyze some selected milk production parameters of a large-scale buffalo farm in the Southern Province of Sri Lanka, based on the farm records. Records of 130 crossbred Murrah buffaloes during the period of 2006-2013 were used. The following production parameters were calculated for the first five lactations, i) average milk yield per cow per day (MYD) ii) average milk yield per cow per lactation (MYL) iii) average lactation length (LL)iv) average length of the dry period (LD). The lowest and the highest values obtained for first five lactations, and the overall average for each parameter were i) MYD (liters): 2.84+0.07, 3.74±0.12 and 3.21±0.07 ii) MYL (liters): 654.00±78.36, 960.78±79.23 and 814.29±27.19 iii) LL (days): 197.29±26.77, 2 8 5 .9 7 il7 .2 9 and 262.11±7.57 vi) LD (days): 1 5 4 .8 0 il9 .7 5 ,2 3 7 .0 1 il7 .8 9 and 2 1 5 .9 6 ill.5 6 , respectively. The individual lactation (1st to 5th lactations) curves and the curve for overall average revealed that the maximum yield was obtained during 3rd to 5th month of the lactation and that it decreased gradually, thereafter. In conclusion, the milk production parameters obtained from Murrah crossbred buffaloes were found to be suboptimal during the studied period. Arriving at peak milk production was delayed for one to three months in first five lactations. It is highly probable that suboptimal productivity is due to poor nutrition of the animals led by non-availability of quality roughages throughout the year.