Jafarabadi buffalo

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A herd of Jafarabadi and Murrah buffaloes in Brazil
A female Jafarabadi buffalo in India.

The Jafarabadi buffalo, Jaffrabadi buffalo or Gir buffalo[1] is a domesticated riverine buffalo that originated in Gujarat, India.[2] The most recent estimates reveal that there are around 600,000 Jafarabadi buffaloes in the world.[3][4] It is one of the important buffalo breeds of India and Pakistan.[5] The Jafarabadi buffalo is also the first buffalo breed exported to Brazil,[6] and is also one of the four buffalo breeds raised in Brazil as of 2017, the others being Mediterranean, Murrah and swamp buffalo.[7]

The Indian National Scientific Documentation Centre states that the Jafarabadi buffalo is a hybrid of the African Cape buffalo and the Indian water buffalo, the former originally been brought to British India for slaughtering.[8] The Centre notes this to be one of the major reasons for the buffalo's poor semen quality.[8] The hybrid buffaloes were widely present in Jafarabad, and were hence named as Jafarabadi buffalo.[8] Jafarabadi buffaloes have heavy heads with fairly large, thick, flat horns, which drop on the sides of the neck and go on upwards till the ears.[9]

This is one of the water buffalo breeds that falls prey to Asiatic lions in the Gir Forest National Park.

References

  1. "Jaffarabadi | Buffalopedia". Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  2. Presicce, Giorgio A. (31 March 2017). The Buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) – Production and Research. Bentham Science Publishers. ISBN 9781681084176.
  3. Borghese, Antonio (2005). "Buffalo Production and Research" (PDF). REU Technical Series (67): 59.
  4. Rife, David Cecil (1959). The water buffalo of India and Pakistan. International Cooperation Administration. p. 31.
  5. Falvey, Lindsay; Hanthalakkhan, Haran (1 January 1999). Smallholder Dairying in the Tropics. ILRI (aka ILCA and ILRAD). ISBN 9780734014320.
  6. Porter, Valerie; Alderson, Lawrence; Hall, Stephen J. G.; Sponenberg, D. Phillip (9 March 2016). Mason's World Encyclopedia of Livestock Breeds and Breeding, 2 Volume Pack. CABI. ISBN 9781845934668.
  7. Pylro, Victor; Roesch, Luiz (21 September 2017). The Brazilian Microbiome: Current Status and Perspectives. Springer. ISBN 9783319599977.
  8. "Indian Science Abstracts". Indian National Scientific Documentation Centre. 2006. p. 156.
  9. Hill, Desmond (1988). Cattle and Buffalo Meat Production in the Tropics. Longman Scientific & Technical. pp. 41–44. ISBN 9780582608955.