About Indian Cattle Breeds

In India, there are about 60 recognized breeds of cattle in India, in addition to large number of non-descript cattle. Five of the Indian Cattle Breed — Sahiwal, Red Sindhi, Gir, Rathi and Tharparkar — are well known for their high milking capacity.

At present, although the majority of India's cattle is non-descriptive, there are 37-41 well defined breeds of cattle. These can be broadly classified into milch, and dual purpose breeds.

Gir, Sindhi, Sahiwal and Deoni are milch breeds. Hariana, Ongole, Tharparkar, Kankrej are dual purpose breeds of cattle.

This Article on "Types of Indian cattle breed" is shared with the public, to save the Indian cattle breeds. Let us not forget that they also have equal rights to live on this planet as we have. Our life style and our ignorance have driven most of them towards getting extinct. We want to give them a helping hand to save them and allow them to breed and survive along with us.

The local breeds have following merits over exotic breeds viz:

1. Better disease resistance than exotic breeds
2. More suitable for low input management system
3. Survive better in local environment

In addition, existence of superior indigenous breeds can provide valuable research inputs for developing superior breeds. It is therefore important that Indigenous breeds of cattle are conserved, developed and proliferated.

Around the year 1938, Col. Olver, Animal Husbandry Expert to the Government or India, classifies the different breeds found in this country into four basic groups. They are :

1. The large white cattle of the north
2. The very distinct Mysore type of the South with characteristic formation of head and horns
3. The highly peculiar Gir cattle of Kathiawar and the west of India
4. The small black, red or dun cattle which are from north to south and east to west of India, mainly in hilly tracts and forest areas

The popular and chief breeds of cattle are:

• Sindhi
• Gir (Kathiawar)
• Sahiwal or Montgomery
• Hansi
• Kankreji
• Gujrati and other Gujrat breeds
• Deccani
• Nellore or Ongole (Madras)
• Layalpur (Punjab)
• Khillary Cattle
• Amrit Mahal (Mysore)
• Malva Cattle
• Krishna Valley cattle
• Shahabad cattle (Bihar)
• Cross Breeds
  1. Poona Ayrshire and Sindhi
  2. Bankipur Cross Breeds