Cow shelter in Andhra Pradesh on a mission to conserve a dwarf cow breed

Krishnam Raju, a cattle rearer from Andhra Pradesh has always been intrigued by the sheer diversity of the cattle found in India. About 15 years ago, when he came across the dwarf Punganur cow breed whose numbers have been on a decline, he took it as a challenge to ensure that he contributed to the revival of the rare cow species.

A resident of Lingampatti village in the East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, Raju initially started with buying a Punganur cow and getting it bred through artificial insemination on an animal husbandry farm in the Guntur district.

"The breeding was successfully conducted in a government facility in Guntur and with the passage of time, fifteen years later I am the proud rearer of almost 300 Punganur cows in my gosala (cow shelter) which is built on a land of about four acres (1.6 hectares)," Raju told Gaon Connection.

Talking about the reasons behind a fall in the population of the Punganur cows in India, Raju attributed it to the introduction of exotic breeds which led to a neglect of the indigenous cows like the dwarf Punganur which is native to Andhra Pradesh and is considered as one of the most sacred cow breeds across the country.

"Even the saints and sages in the Vedic age reared Punganur and its milk is also used in ceremonial rituals to the deities in South India. The ghee (clarified butter) offered at the Tirupati temple is made of milk produced by Punganur," he told Gaon Connection.

The ghee made from Punganur cow milk is also used for making the delicious laddus in the Tirupati temple.

Low fodder intake, high milk production

Raju, while talking about the lucrative potential in rearing the Punganur, informed that owing to the smaller stature of the cow, its requirement of fodder is also low as compared to other cow breeds.

"But it doesn't mean that the milk output is also low. It hardly needs five kilogrammes of fodder in a day and produces at least three to five litres of milk per day. The ratio of fodder intake and milk production is much higher than other species," he said.

"Also, the fat content in its milk is higher than an average cow breed. Its milk has eight per cent fat content while cow milk usually has about three to three and half per cent of fat. Its milk also has medicinal properties," he added.

The cattle shed owner also informed that another cow breed from the southern region of the country — Vechur in Kerala is also a dwarf cattle breed. "But the Punganur cows in Andhra Pradesh are smaller than Vechur. The Kerala breed is three to four feet in height while my cows are merely a couple of feet tall," he said.

Mission Punganur

Raju's 300 Punganur cows are amongst the last few remaining cattle of the rare breed. As per the report titled 20th Livestock Census published by the Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying & Fisheries there were 13,275 Punganur cows in the country. Also, as per a report by the same department titled Estimated Livestock Population Breed Wise the number of the Punganur cows was 2,772 in 2013. For a comparison, there are an estimated 2,967 tigers in India as per the latest tiger census released by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA).

In the wake of the decline in the population of the valuable cow breed, the state government launched 'Mission Punganur' in 2020 and approved Rs 693.60 million for its conservation. The conservation efforts include artificial breeding of the cows from other breeds by inseminating them with semen from Punganur cattle.

Tirupati-based Sri Venkateswara Veterinary University and Andhra Pradesh Centre for Advanced Research in Livestock Limited (APCARL) in Pulivendula are the research facilities that are undertaking the conservation efforts.

Read this report in Hindi