Effect of mineral mixture supplementation on productive and reproductive performance of buffaloes

Providing adequate nutrition is one of the crucial factor in maintaining proper biological, immunological, productive and reproductive traits of milch animals. The current study was carried out to find out the effect of mineral mixture supplementation on productive and reproductive performance of buffaloes under Farmer FIRST Project: Integrated Approaches for Livestock Development : Farmers Context, implemented by ICAR. Under this project five villages namely Mehal Kalan, Moom, Channanwal, Dhaner and Kalala of Mchal Kalan block of Barnala district of Punjab are adopted. A total of 100 beneficiary farmers from these five villages were selected and mineral mixture was given free of cost under the project, then data on the effect of mineral mixture supplementation on productive and reproductive performance of buffaloes were collected and analyzed with the help of relevant statistical tools. Results revealed that average daily milk yield, peak milk yield and lactation yield increased significantly (P<0.05) from 8.53 litres, 12.68 litres and 2537.60 litres to 9.14 litres, 13.32 litres and 2664.53 litres respectively in the buffaloes fed with the mineral mixture. Benefit Cost ratio also got enhanced from 1.66 before supplementation to 1.75 after supplementing mineral mixture. Reproductive parameters got improved like average service period got reduced significantly; further average inter-calving period was also decreased from 467.21 days to 386.18 days. Effect was also seen on inseminations per conception got reduced significantly (P<0.05) from 4.07 to 2.15. It may be concluded that adding mineral mixtures to the diet of buffaloes is essential for both their improved reproductive and productive efficiency and for boosting dairy farm profits.