A retrospective analysis was conducted to examine the effect of season and climatic factors on age at puberty, service period and successful mating of Nili-Ravi buffalo maintained at a Public Sector Dairy Farm in Okara, Pakistan. Records, spread over a period of 13 years (2000 to 2012), for 583 buffaloes were analyzed for this purpose. Age at puberty was calculated by subtracting date of birth from date of first fruitful service. Average age at puberty and service period were 1056.87+-83.11 and 193.81+-47.32 days respectively. Season of birth had a significant effect (P LT 0.05) on age at puberty. Calves born in winter had a shorter age at puberty (962.09+-9.81) compared with those born in other three seasons (spring, summer and autumn). Effect of calving season on service period was significant (P LT 0.05). Autumn calvers had the shortest service period (193.81+-47.32). Service period did not differ with calving year (P GT 0.05). Month of the year and successful mating (r = 0.67) were positively correlated with each other (P LT 0.05). Maximum and minimum number of successful mating were recorded in October (21.75 percent) and June (3.88 percent). The correlation between individual climatic factors (i.e. daily temperature, rain fall, sunshine hours, relative humidity) and successful mating was non-significant (P GT 0.05). It was concluded that climatic factors did affect the reproductive activities but their individual effect was non- significant in buffalo. However, season, a combination of climatic factors, had significant effect on reproductive activities.

Paratuberculosis (PTB) in buffaloes is a chronic enteric disease triggering health implications and huge economic losses in livestock. This study was designed to explore a simple, cost-effective diagnostic approach for PTB in water buffaloes. Blood (5 ml/animal) and intestinal tissue samples accompanied by lymph nodes associated with mesentery were collected from weak and diarrhoeac animals slaughtered at local abattoirs. Out of total n=771 clinically suspected animals, only n=53 carcasses were sampled based on gross observation. Tissue smears of the gut mucosae were obtained and were made adopting special staining protocol. Tissue samples were processed by paraffin sectioning and stained with Ziehl-Neelsen and Hematoxylin-Eosin staining methods. Acid-fast bacilli were observed only in 11/53 cases on mucosal tissue smears. Pressure atrophy of small intestine villi were evident, and the mucosae were found sloughed off. The submucosae were heavily infiltrated with mononuclear cells and multifocal cellular nodules dominated by epithelioid macrophages. The foamy cytoplasm of the macrophages appeared to be engorged with acid fast bacilli and depicted the positive cases. All tissue sections of the suspected samples showed 100 percent +ve results while only 20.8 percent samples were found +ve with smear method. All histo-pathologically positive cases were further confirmed by ELISA based serological analysis. Therefore, it was concluded that histopathology is an economical and yet the most trusted tool for diagnosing bubalian PTB in countries like Pakistan.

The objectives of this study was to select nonlinear regression model of relationship between body parameters and live weight of swamp buffaloes for live weight estimation. The animals of Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture at Kampaeng Saen, Kasetsart University, Kampaeng Saen Campus were used in this study. A total of 172 animals were 41 male and 131 female 0 to 25 months old of swamp buffaloes. Parameters of body measurements were shoulder height (SH), hip height (HH), shoulder width (SW), hip width (HW), body length (BL) and hearth girth (HG) were measured in centimeters during weighting. Three of nonlinear regression models including exponential, polynomial quadratic and power models were analyzed relationship between body parameters and live weight in each body parameter. The results revealed that power model gave the best fit model of HG and live weight relationship with highest R sup(2) (0.9662, 0.9748 and 0.9702) in male, female and both sex of swamp buffaloes, respectively. In addition, percentage error and accuracy of 3 models were investigated between HG and live weight of swamp buffaloes (n=492). The result revealed that polynomial quadratic model showed highly accuracy (98.92 percent) between actual live weight and calculated weight from the equation of y = 0.0233x**(2) -2.9263x+129.81 with R sup(2) value of 0.9678, when y = estimated live weight (kg), x = heart girth (cm). In conclusion, this model provides a highly reliable and accurate method for estimating weights of swamp buffaloes using a single heart girth measurement which can be easily obtained with a girth tape in the field work.

The thrust of the present study was to explore the export potential of buffalo meat in India. India, the top buffalo meat producer in the world, is placed at fourth rank as buffalo meat exporter. During 2017 to 2018, Vietnam, Malaysia, Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia are the five major destinations accounting for nearly 79 percent of the country's buffalo meat shipments, out of which Vietnam alone cornered 57 percent. India's current global supremacy in the buffalo meat production can only be translated into supremacy in exports as well, if stringent policy initiatives are put in place to promote export-oriented quality controlled production and processing.

The study was conducted to maintain the leanness of meat while processing by substituting added fat with skim milk powder (SMP) without breaching quality attributes. Four treatments viz. control: 20 percent fat, T-1: sausages with 3 percent SMP, T-2: sausages with 6 percent SMP, T-3: sausages with 9 percent SMP, were tried to develop low-fat sausages. Water holding capacity and emulsion stability of T-3 were higher (P LT 0.05) amongst all, but could not pass sensory acceptability, however all attributes of T-1 and T-2 were higher than control, but comparable to each other. Thus T-1 was selected for further quality evaluation and compared with high fat products. The cooking yield, pH, protein content, oxidative stability along with sensory attributes of selected products (low-fat) were significantly (P LT 0.05) higher, however, vice-versa was true for shear press value and fat and did not affect textural properties. The results concluded that SMP (3 percent) incorporation could be a way to substitute fat while processing of meat giving 42 percent lower calorie content.

Thirty-six healthy Tarai buffaloes (280-350+-10 kg body weight, 2nd to 4th parity) were selected to investigate their milk composition. The selected animals were divided into four groups having nine buffaloes in each group as, each group from early, mid and late lactation and another group of dry buffaloes. The study carried out in four seasons and climatic variants of temperature and relative humidity were recorded for each month where temperature-humidity index (THI) was calculated. Results of milk composition with advancing in lactation stage showed significantly (P LT 0.05) higher values for milk fat, urea and total solids. In season-wise, milk constituents of fat, protein and total solids were found significantly (P LT 0.05) higher during winter season except higher milk urea in summer season. Other milk constituents include lactose, SNF and pH were remain unaffected throughout the lactation period and seasons. Milk somatic cell count (SCC) is affected by both lactation period and seasons but the variations stood non-significant. Calculated THI in tarai region was found higher (79 LT THI LT 84) during summer and rainy seasons. It may be concluded that Tarai buffalo performances are affected by seasonal variations and lactation period as indicated in milk composition variations. Thus, Tarai buffalo could perform better if improvement in their management system of housing and feeding of quality nutrients.

Mastitis is common in buffaloes with significant impact on the rural economy. The present work was undertaken to find out the prevalence of sub clinical mastitis in buffaloes in and around Gannavaram, Andhra Pradesh, India by using different diagnostic methods. The prevalence of sub clinical mastitis based on California Mastitis Test, somatic cell count, electrical resistance and milk pH was 20.34, 21.62, 6.20 and 8.27 percent, respectively on screening of 629 quarters of 158 Graded Murrah buffaloes. Bacterial culture was considered to be a gold standard and revealed the prevalence as 28.30 percent with 178 quarter milk samples positive for bacterial growth. Further the study was also focussed on the comparison of the diagnostic tests CMT, SCC, ER and pH by using culture results as gold standard. The percent accuracy of California Mastitis Test, Somatic cell count, electrical resistance and pH were 89.83, 92.69, 77.27 and 79.65, respectively.