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Marathwadi buffalo Photo: Navneet Kaur · Pexels License · source ↗

Marathwadi buffalo

Marathwadi is a medium-sized dual-purpose buffalo of the drought-prone Marathwada region of central Maharashtra. Registered with NBAGR in 2010, the breed is reared mainly by small and marginal farmers who keep one to three animals for milk, draught and farmyard manure. It is closely related to Pandharpuri and Nagpuri but is genetically distinct enough to warrant separate registration.

Origin and distribution

The home tract is Aurangabad (now Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar), Beed, Latur, Osmanabad (Dharashiv), Nanded, Parbhani and Jalna districts of Marathwada. Light black soils, low and erratic rainfall (600-800 mm) and limited green-fodder availability have shaped a buffalo that is small but extremely feed-efficient. Marathwadi is also found in adjoining parts of Telangana (Nizamabad, Adilabad) and northern Karnataka.

Morphology

Adult cows weigh 350-410 kg and bulls 450-525 kg. Coat colour is black, with occasional white markings on the forehead, switch and fetlocks. Horns are characteristic — long, flat, sword-shaped, sweeping outward and backward; bull horns can exceed 50 cm. The body is compact with a deep chest, suited to draught. The udder is medium-sized with cylindrical teats.

Productivity

Lactation yield is 700-1,200 kg over 280 days with milk fat of 7-8% and SNF above 9% — modest in absolute terms but very respectable on the low-quality crop-residue diet typical of Marathwada. Inter-calving interval is 16-20 months. A pair of bullocks can plough 0.3 ha/day and pull a 1-tonne cart 20 km — important in rainfed cotton-jowar farming.

The breed shows good heat tolerance, hardiness to ticks and resilience to recurring drought — it loses condition more slowly than Murrah crossbreds when fodder is scarce.

Management

A typical smallholder ration is 4-5 kg jowar/cotton stover, 8-10 kg green grass when available and 2-3 kg home-made concentrate (Concentrate Feed Mix Dairy) per 4-5 kg/day yield. ICAR-CIRB and MAFSU, Parbhani, run a Marathwadi breed-conservation herd; community-bull schemes provide pedigree Marathwadi bulls to discourage indiscriminate Murrah crossing that erodes drought tolerance. Standard udder hygiene minimises mastitis (Mastitis Dairy), which is the leading cause of culling in peri-urban Marathwadi herds.

See also: Pandharpuri buffalo, Nagpuri buffalo, Murrah buffalo, Milk fat & SNF pricing.

Sources

  1. Marathwadi buffalo — NBAGR breed profile. ICAR-National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources, Karnal.
  2. Marathwadi — Dairy Knowledge Portal. National Dairy Development Board.