Indigenous Cow (A sad story From A Glorious Past to Near Extinction)

Indigenous cow, road,
The worst thing in India is that people are very less aware of many facts and reality. For instance, Indigenous cows are on the verge of extinction; but hardly people know this fact. We Indians are emotionally attached to Cow and we find its reference in many religious books.

We hear so much hue and cry in media about respect of cow, saving cows from slaughter and making more Gaushalas (Cow Homes); however, in reality we find many of them in bad condition wondering here and there for survival. Indigenous cows give much less milk as compared to Foreign cows or Buffalo; therefore, people are leaving Indigenous cows. Just construction of Cow homes (Gaushalas) doesn't provide any solution and we need big changes.

Cows were very dear to the Hindu God Krishna and we all must have heard many stories of him involving cows. A Cow is referred as Kamdhenu, meaning giver of plenty of essential things. In India, it is believed that everything coming from a Cow is pure and beneficial; and the same is true for Cow dung and urine. 

In my native village in Himachal, we still clean the floor with cow dung to make it pure for Puja or Havan. For common Indians, Cow is something which is deeply associated with their soul. Earlier, It was common to find a cow in every single Indian home because of so many things we can get from the cow. 
Cow, road

However, today these indigenous cows are going close to extinction because of changing lifestyle of people and demand for foreign cows or buffalo because of their capacity to give more milk. Today, in every part of India, we can easily buy milk; therefore, many people don't see it wise to have cows for the milk.

In the cities where 50% of Indian population lives the numbers of cows per house old are negligible because here people live a busy life; therefore, they have no time to take care of cows. Second, there is a shortage of space and cow food in cities. Though, the situation is not much better in the villages too, where people also prefer to buy milk than have cows.

Those who can afford cows, they opt for foregin cows (Jersey cows) or Buffalo because of higher milk yield. Indian government started cross breeding Indigenous cows with foregin bulls in the early 60s to increase milk production blindly which pulled down Indigenous cows close to extinction. Today, we hardly find pure indigenous cows except in some remote locations or on Indian roads.

There are studies which suggest that milk from indigenous cows is much healthier than the milk from a foreign breed of cows. Indigenous cows have high quality A2 Aelle gene that is responsible for production of healthier milk. Moreover, Indigenous cows become less ill as compared to a foregin breed of cows and they require less medication.
Indian cow, indigenous,

Today, we see a race to increase milk production by compromising health and Indian values. We have a plenty of milk, but we don't know how healthy it is? We need to encourage people to opt Indigenous Cows some of which even give high quantity of milk than foreign cows.

The most of the varieties of cows we have today are of result of mixing of gene of foreign cows with Indigenous cows or they are imported from foreign countries. All these foreigns cows require more care and they become ill quite often because they come from cold weather. Due to high use of medicines in foreign cows, we get a milk which is poisoned in some way.

On the other hand, we can get healthy milk from indigenous cows without the need of medicines. An indigenous Gir cow (pure gene) made a world record in Brazil for highest yield of milk in a year. In India, we are still blindly moving behind foreign cows breeds while ignoring the high potential stored in indigenous cows.

I hope that the Indian cows will again one day find their right place in Indian society and we will value more healthier milk than the high quantity of milk. The Indian government can work in this direction to save indigenous cows and thus saving Indian glory. 

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