High yielding dairy cattle husbandry and their production performance at Baghabari Milk Vita areas of Bangladesh

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Introduction
Livestock rearing is an integrated part of agricultural development in Bangladesh and it is expected that about 75% rural people directly or indirectly associated with livestock farming.Shamsuddin et al. (2007) reported that livestock contributes 2.79% of GDP while dairy sector alone contributes 1.8% for the development of village micro economy.Dairying is growing faster in this country but it is facing the problems of inefficient managements and health care, breeds of unplanned higher exotic blood percentage, uncontrolled breeding, high farm input and low output prices leading to lower productivity (Uddin et al., 2010).Out of total 23.10 million cattle populations 6 million are dairy cattle and its 10-15% are crossbreed (DLS, 2012;Hamid and Hossain, 2014).There are several milk pocket areas in Bangladesh where Baghabari Milk Vita areas are the origin of high yielding cattle because of the breed development program since the British ruling of this Indian subcontinent.Das et al. (2003) and Zaedi et al. (2009) mentioned two types of feeding systems surrounding the Baghabari Milk Vita areas namely stall feeding (July to November) and bathan feeding (December to June) because of the availability of legume pasture in winter season.High yielding dairy cows of Milk Vita regions are developed from the imported purebred bulls and semen of various temperate breeds like Australian-Friesian-Sahiwal, Holstein and Jersey with local Pabna milking cows (PMC).The average milk production of high yielding Holstein-Friesian, Jersey, Sahiwal and Red Sindhi crossbreeds found average 5 to 10 liters per day (Khan, 2009).The annual milk production in Bangladesh is 6.97 million while the supply needed 14.48 million tons (DLS, 2015).However, mastitis and repeat breeding are two major constraints for the dairying in those areas.The present study was planned to clear the concept of high yielding cattle husbandry with reproductive performance and peak milk production capability in a famous milk pocket area which was not paid more attention from previous studies in Bangladesh.

Materials and Methods
A benchmark survey was conducted on 15 randomly selected households by a preselected survey questionnaire during 8-9 July, 2016 having dairy farms in Sirajgonj (Shahjadpur) and Pabna (Santhia) districts of Bangladesh (Figure 1).Another study was performed to clarify the individual cow performance with available husbandry practices from six randomly selected bathans from Shahjadpur of Sirajgonj district on 27-28 December, 2016.All surveyed data were firstly extracted into MS excel version 2010 (Microsoft, Redmond, WA, USA).The gathered data were then analyzed by statistical models χ 2 -tests and GLM (multivariate) including descriptive statistics using SPSS version 16 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) with LSD post hoc mean separation test.

Husbandry of high yielding cows at household and bathan areas
Survey in the households of two districts nearby the Baghabari Milk Vita plant revealed overall farming status (Table 1 and Figure 2), in which about 67% were medium scale farming with up to 20 milking cows.Small scale (27%) farming mainly found in Pabna district while large scale dairy farming (7%) in Sirajgonj district.
Housing (P = 0.003) and animal welfare (P = 0.003) were observed comparatively better (40% for both) in Sirajgonj rather than Pabna district.About 80% farmers belong to small scale farming with 2-3 milking cows in Bangladesh (Saadullah, 2002;Kobir, 1997).But this study reported 67% medium scale farming in the surveyed area.It might be the reason of rapid growth of population, poverty and meeting the nutritional requirement for country people as an alternate income source or business.In addition, dairy farms closely to Milk Vita plant are more developed and organized than the farms of long distances because of milk selling opportunity in that place.
The overall statistics regarding milk production in the surveyed areas are shown in Table 2.The average highest cattle population was 32 in the studied household areas including average 19 milch cows.Highest milk production reached up to 213 liters from few households where the farmers deprived for real price of milk either by Milk Vita (31 Taka per liter) or Ghos or other existing milk collection sources (35 Taka per liter).The average AI fee noted 250 Taka in those areas but most for the farmers received free AI service for their cows including free treatment, medicine and medication from the inseminators and veterinary doctors of Milk Vita.
This might be another important factor for those farmers to receive the semen from Milk Vita and this free AI service created a monopoly milk business there.Zaedi et al. (2009) classified different dairy farmers in Milk Vita region and found average 3.9 (small scale), 8.4 (medium scale) and 19.9 (large scale) crossbreeds cows in each farm and these findings agreed with the present study.Mandal (2013) observed that Milk Vita occupied 46% shares of milk business followed by Aurong (25%) and Pran Milk (15%) in Bangladesh.The dairy management system in two districts (Table 3) at household levels revealed that ad libitum fodder and straw supplying was practiced based on the availability of fodder in 60 and 40% households, respectively.In summer, the dairy farmers of Pabna district allowed cultivating fodders to their cattle but reverse situation (mainly straw) found in Sirajgonj because green fodder is usually available during bathan feeding at winter season.Farmers of both districts were conscious about concentrate feeding for more milk production.Artificial insemination was practiced in 80% dairy farms although few farms confirmed about natural mating to minimize repeat breeding problem of their cows.Most of the farmers (80%) used the semen of Milk Vita because of its excellence (73%) for higher milk production and growth performance in progenies.About 73% farmers directly depended on Milk Vita for selling their cows' milk while 27% on contract persons (Ghos).Rashid et al. (2007) found average 5.12 cows per household in their study where 76% breeding were performed by artificial insemination in Jessore district of Bangladesh.They also reported 42% farmers sold their cows' milk to plant and 15% to open market.About 79% artificial insemination identified in the crossbreed cattle of Shahjadpur Upazila of Sirajgonj while 66% in Bera Upazila of Pabna district (Islam et al., 2010).
The study on few bathan areas revealed that those areas encompassed with single or multi ownerships with different ranged cattle population (Figure 3).Green fodder was abundant for cattle in those areas, in addition, most of the farmers provided hand mixed concentrate feeds (maximum 6 kg by two times) for milch cows to ensure the milk production (Table 4).The farmers mainly performed artificial insemination from the semen of Milk Vita for breeding purpose except natural mating by breeding bulls in few repeat breeding cases.The collected milk from these areas usually sold to Milk Vita as main source.Zaedi et al. (2009) stated that bathan is one kind of strip of sandy land rising out of a river bed and also a large area of pasture land for Napier (Nnapier spp.), Jambo, Local Durba and Carpert green grasses, and Khesari (Lathyrus sativa) and Mati kalia (Vigna sinensis) legume production.They also added that cattle were housed in temporary shed and allowed to graze daily about 6-8 hours, and two times concentrate feeding per day (11 am and 3 pm).Although legume fodder were available in the Baral of river for the bathan animals the farmers also provided a concentrate mixture of rice polish, mustard oil cake and common salt once a day while the fodder were replaced by straw during stall feeding (Das et al., 2003).A study on different Thana of Jessore district by Rashid et al. (2007)

Production performance of high yielding cows at household and bathan areas
The effect of crossbreeds showed differences on reproductive performance (P = 0.034) of high yielding cows but no variation observed on peak milk production (Table 5).Similarly variation only observed for the effect of rearing system on reproductive trait (P = 0.005) regarding total number of AI in last pregnancy.The overall mean showed that cows were conceived by 1.62 artificial inseminations with peak milk production 17.57liters per day.Individual performance diversity of studied high yielding cows (Figure 4) is clearly presented for AI service (Figure 5a) and highest milk production (Figure 5b) based on breed and rearing system.Kabir and Kisku (2013) identified 1.64 AI services per conception which was agreed with this study.The results of Miazi et al. (2007) were not agreed with present study mentioning 1.25 services for Local×Jersey.These results showed higher sustainability of Jersey crossbreeds than Friesian in local environment.(Sarder et al., 2007) which were not agreed with this study.These results indicated more genetic improvement than previous for milk production but lower reproductive efficiency beside such development.

Conclusions
It is concluded that high yielding dairy cattle husbandry was satisfactory in the studied Milk Vita areas comparing to other milk pocket areas of Bangladesh.But few constraints identified regarding scarcity of fodder, higher price of ready feed and lower quality of feed ingredients, monopoly milk business with depriving price for farmers, and genetic admixture of cattle for uncontrolled breeding.Hybrid fodder cultivation, ensuring quality feed and recorded breeding program with special care during bathan feeding according to predominant breed characteristics could strengthen the overall dairy farming status both in husbandry and productivity.Government and non government organizations could contribute to those works for the advancement of dairying in Bangladesh.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Location of the surveyed areas (red circled) in Sirajgonj and Pabna districts.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Small (a), medium (b) and large scale (c) dairy farming systems in studied areas.

Figure 5 .
Figure 5. Individual AI services for last pregnancy (a) and highest milk production in last lactation (b) of high yielding cows at household and bathan at Milk Vita areas.

Table 1 . The dairy farming status in the studied Milk Vita areas.
observed that concentrate feed of dairy cattle was prepared by rice bran, wheat bran, pulses bran, mustard oil cake, till oil cake, crushed rice, molasses and salt with 35.

Number of AI service for last calving Peak milk production at three months of lactation (liter/day)
SE= Standard Error; L= Local (mainly Pabna cattle), HF= Holstein Friesian, SL= Sahiwal and JE= Jersey cattle breed Mamun et al. (2015)7 liters/day) and Local×Sahiwal×Friesian (6.15 liters/day) genotypes in F 3 generation at Savar Dairy Farm which were not agreed with this study.However,Nath et al. (2016)observed comparatively higher milk production from Holstein Friesian (13 liters/day), Jersey (8 liters/day) and Sahiwal (6 liters/day) crosses at households of Mithapukur Upazila of Rangpur district.The variation of study in different periods indicated genetic progress on milk production.Das et al. (2003)recorded service per conception (1.36) and average milk production (8.28 liters) in Local (Pabna)×Friesian genotype at Bagharaighat region of Sirajgonj.SimilarlyBaset et al. (2012)identified 1.36 service per conception in Local (Pabna)×Friesian genotype in Bagharari bathan area which was slightly lower than this study.Mamun et al. (2015)observed 1.21 AI per conception in Holstein Friesian crossbreed at Uzankashir Char of Mymensingh district.In the rural area of Rajshahi district peak milk production observed 11.63 liters from Local×Holstein-Friesian and 9.1 liters milk per day from Local×Sahiwal×Holstein-Friesian genotypes Majid et al. (1996)ound average 8 and 5 liters milk from Holstein Friesian and Sahiwal crossbreeds in Sarsha Upazila of Jessore with lactation period 262 and 250 days, respectively.Majid et al. (1996)identified similar production from a b