Haryana’s Murrah buffaloes now a ‘brand’, some bulls are worth crores

JIND:

Murrah buffaloes

have emerged as “black gold” for cattle breeders in Haryana as these bulls are in demand due to high semen quality. Haryana has been a hub of Murrah buffaloes and bulls in the world, with some of these bulls turning into a brand for their owners. Some sources have claimed that a bull was recently sold for Rs 11 crores, however, there has been no confirmed report of such a deal.

Rushtam

, a buffalo owned by

Dalel Singh

of

Gatauli village

in Jind district, has emerged as a champion bull by defeating others on various parameters in a cattle fare organised in Solan, Himachal Pradesh, on December 18. Nine-year old Rushtam, 15 feet long and around six feet tall, was awarded the “Krishak Ratna” award worth Rs 5 lakh, with his oiled body and smooth grey-black hide being the talk of the town.

Dalel Singh informed that the bull produces nearly five ML sperm and can be extracted three times. “This exercise is followed every three months for a period of about 15 days. One shot of sperm generates 400 straws, which are sold for Rs 400 per straw. Thus, it produces about 10 thousand shots every three months,” he said.

Singh said Rushtam’s feed include 8 litre milk, 300 gram desi ghee, 3 kg chana, half kg methi, 100 gram badam, 3.5 kg carrot, every day besides fodder. The bull is taken for stroll for nearly 2 to 3 km every morning and evening. Dalel Singh said that Rushtam has won 26 national titles in the bull championships across the country, besides six international titles. “Rushtam has fathered 50 thousand calves till now,” he claimed.

The bull is famous for its beauty and quality of semen, which ensure a handsome yearly income up to Rs 20 lakh for its owner.

Some other bulls in Haryana are also equally famous. Yuvraj of Kurukshetra, Bajrangi of Chandoli village in Kurukshetra , besides Rustam of Jind district, are counted among the best in the state.

Karmbir Singh, resident of Sunaria village in Kurukshetra district, is the owner of Yuvraj. He said that he had been emotionally attached to Yuvraj, who is now 18 years old. “Despite high prices, I have rejected many offers to sell Yuvraj and I have decided never to sell my bull”. Yuvraj has been a national champion and had fathered thousands of calves across the country.

Dalel Singh said that there are many parameters for selecting best bulls in the championships, which include 60 marks for testicle, besides curves in the horne, stride, height, length and shape of the body.

Another famous bull named Chand, owned by Pardeep Turn, a B.Tech student turned farmer from Panipat’s Sodhapur village, has won the Progressive Dairy Farmers Association (PDFA) International competition held in Jagrao, Punjab, on December 11.Chand is son of Sultan, another famous who died of heart attack last September. Sultan too had won numerous national awards, including the ‘National Animal Beauty Competition’ in Jhajjar. Notably, in the Pushkar Fair, an animal lover had offered to buy Sultan for Rs 21 crore, but his owner, Naresh Beniwal, had decided not to sell the buffalo as he treated him like his own.