Evaluation of cattle in Punjab and some suggestions

This is the first post for this blog. Mr.Tony Evangelo, Area Director of Marketing, World Wide Sires, USA was in India in Feb 2010 and judged the cattle show at Jargaon, Punjab on Feb 13-14, 2010. He has penned his thoughts and what he saw in the Indian cattle (Punjab) and how these cattle could be improved further. 

I had the pleasure of serving as a judge for the PDFA Dairy Cattle show in Jagraon, Punjab on February 13 and 14.

The cow in featured alongside (right and below was the 1^st prize in the Milking Cow group. She won on the merit of her quality udder and dairy characteristics.  Her rear udder exhibited good capacity and width.  She also displays a strong central ligament, which indicates her udder will hold form for many lactations.  She also showed angularity over the shoulder, and a deep, open rib.

A side view of the 1^st prize cow (above) shows her to be good cow, not so large, but has enough size for a commercial dairy operation.  Here, you can see her strong fore udder attachment, correct leg set, and depth of fore rib.  She also has a correct rump, with proper slope from hips to pins.

On the right is a photo of the 1^st prize Mature Bull.  This bull impressed with great size, stature and strength.  He was selected the winner based on his tremendous frame traits.  He also shows a correct leg structure with a steep foot angle.

The picture on the left is an example of a high quality, mature Jersey cow.  She has tremendous depth of rib and openness to her rib.  For a mature cow, she shows strong udder attachments and correct teat placement.  She appears to be a high producing individual, with many productive lactations.

The cow picture below shows outstanding dairy form, with open ribs and plenty of capacity in her barrel.  She has strong udder attachments, and correct teat placement.  She does display some curve to her rear legs, and a bull that sires a straighter leg should be used to improve her rear leg structure.

There are ways to correct the cows in the next generation using set of bulls that are available. Each character has a different heritability and in come cases the correction can happen in one generation or may take 3 in some cases. 

We do hope that the information above will be of value to you.

Amit Sachdev

India Consultant

World Wide Sires

E mail: indiawws@gmail.com