Decline in Reproductive Performance in High Producing Murrah Buffalo

In the present investigation the average performance of various performance traits in Murrah buffaloes has been studied. Data on 1224 lactations of Murrah buffaloes scattered over 19 years from January 1993 to October 2011 maintained at organized herd of National Dairy Research Institute. A total of 522 buffaloes completed first lactation and 368, 226 and 108 animals completed second, third and fourth lactations, respectively. Following traits were studied, age at first calving (AFC), days to first service (DFS), service period (SP), pregnancy rate (PR), lactation length (LL), 305 days or less milk yield (305 DMY) and 305 days or less wet average (WA). Study revealed that average performance of AFC, DFS and SP was 43.97 ± 0.36 months, 90.10 ± 1.60 days and 139.91 ± 2.96 days. Overall average pregnancy rate was estimated as 0.36 ± 0.013 whereas it was found to be 0.34 ± 0.02, 0.39 ± 0.02, 0.33 ± 0.03, 0.38 ± 0.05 for first, second, third and fourth parity, respectively in Murrah buffalo. The average performance of LL, 305 DMY, WA were estimated to be 284.38 ± 1.08 days, 2034.42 ± 20.79 kg and 7.29 ± 0.06 kg. It may be inferred that intense selection of buffalo for milk production if continued for long with giving due attention to reproductive traits then it is likely to cause deterioration in reproduction traits in days to come.