Bovine Breeding in Bangladesh

The bovine breeding with the Bangladesh is an important component of the local breeding. It is strongly overlapping in agriculture, pillar of this country very mainly agricultural.

History

The Zebu, Bos taurus indicus is a bovine branch which goes down from Bos primigenius , the aurochs and which separated in the Indian peninsula with the wire of the millenia. Domesticated several millenia ago, it remarkably adapted to the tropical Climat local wet, marked by the Mousson. The Natural selection and human worked a homogeneous population with local alternatives resulting from a little different conditions: cut, color…
Lors of the British Colonization , the governors undertook to apply the methods of breeding which made the success of the British races:

Identification of the racial types in each area and attribution of a name of race. (sometimes opening of a Herd book)
Creation of experimental farms in order to improve the race on several generations.
Selection of the most characteristic individuals to populate the farms.
Introduction of males of bigger size resulting from other areas.

This work led to the creation of the race Bengali. On the other hand, the most moved back areas preserved their cattle adapted well and without crossing.

Structure of the breeding

traditional Breeding : The traditional structure is the family, with a small small holding and between 1 and 3 or 4 cows. The cows are used for traction of the plow or of the cart, provide a little milk intended for the children and the excrements. (conbustible, mortar and manure) the cows are nourished of straw during the dry season and grass of the slopes and ways or waste of the garden in wet period. The meat is seldom consumed, reserved aus important festivals like the marriage. The small size of the animals allows a fast consumption of the meat in villages without refrigerators.
Breeding " britannique" : The successive governors had the role the development of the territories in order to export raw materials towards British industry. The creation of the experimental farms was initially intended to create larger and more powerful races for the valorization of large fields. These attempts regularly fell through because of the diseases due to moisture, the difficulty in working on the long run in regularly flooded zone and of the demographic pressure.
recent attempts at amlioration of the livestock : For a few years, the selection has taken place differently. It uses the local races as support female with the use of males or seed of more productive, but badly adapted races. A selection is operated with each generation to preserve rustic individis while making progress the productivity. This breeding gives good reproducers, resistant to the conditions and productive. The goal of all this work is to make disappear the not selected males and that the selected races absorb the indigenous cattle by improving it. The improvement relates mainly to the dairy production: the inhabitants are mainly too poor to regularly consume meat and the programs of FAO try to introduce a milk portion into the ration of the children.
Resistances to this work : This selection runs up against the poverty of the peasants. They have the means neither of paying a projection, nor to move their cows towards a center of insemination. In addition, FAO tries to set up a programme of safeguarding of the traditional races in order to preserve genetic diversity. Certain races are already reported missing, diluted in the population without race in the course of improvement.

Bovine races

The country account approximately 24 million heads of cattle representing 3,5 animals by exploitation on average. 90% of the cattle are not indexed like race. It is of cattle renewed with calves and a genetic mixing related to the displacement of the draft animals. Moreover the pasture by divagation and pastoralism still mixing accentuates. However, some isolated regions by rivers or zones escarpées have a population which was individualized and indexed like race by FAO.

Races autochtones: Bengali, red Chittagong, Gray of north Bengal, Hariana, Madaripur, Pabna. They are well adapted to the climate: they support to remain a long time the feet in water and can swim.
Races of zebu introduced of India or Pakistan: red Sindhi, Sahiwal. Races of bigger size.
Races come from in addition to seas: Holstein, Friesian-sahiwal Australian: Races at dairy strong potential.

Notes and references of the article

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