Milk from water buffaloes in Trinidad and Tobago
Williams, H.E. (West Indies Univ., St. Augustine (Trinidad and Tobago) Dept. of Livestock Service)
Water buffaloes (WB), in Trinidad and Tobago (TT) since about 1905, are estimated to have made about a 50-100 fold increase in their number, under minimum levels of management and nutrition, to attain a stable, well adapted national herd of about 5,000 head. If half of these WB were milking and yielding the Indian average annual milk production for all WB (of the order of 504 kg./head), 1.260m.kg. of additional milk (0.088.kg. of butterfat) would have resulted. Between 1984-87, this production would have increased the average annual milk intake (10.135m.kg. (0.337m.kg. of butterfat)) from cattle by Trinidad Food Products Ltd. by 12.43 per cent (butterfat by 26.11 per cent.), without any of the expense or trauma of importing temperate dairy cattle. In contrast, the temperate dairy cattle herd, in TT, seems to be unstable and ill-adapted. WB milk sells at a premium in some countries, on account of its high butterfat content. Local production from this source could be improved through better management and feeding, and likely through the transfer of embryos from the top 10 per cent of milkers. Later, new germ plasm might be introduced safely, using modern quarantine procedures, and elite, chilled and frozen local semen offered, as in India. TT should invest in developing the transfer of WB embryos to Bos taurus and B.indicus, for export. WB, which thrive on inferior roughages, such as sugar cane, poultry litter, etc., should be developed as a TT/Caribbean Community (CARICOM) dual purpose farm animal, in parallel with the dairy programme.
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