Habitat: Musakhail, and other mountainous area of Suleiman mountains, Zhob, Sherani, Kakar Khurasan, Loralai, Kohlu, Barkhan, Qillasaifullah, Dera Bugti and Sibi districts. The tribes rearing this breed of cattle are many, i.e. Pani, Kakar, Mandokhail, Hasni, Syed, Buzdar, Kethran, Sherani and other Pashtoon and Baloch tribes. The nucleuses of the breed are Zamri area of Musakhail and Rarkan area of Barkhan districts.
Phenotypic characteristics: The breed has wide diversity and there are many colors, i.e. white with red spots, white with black spots, red, brown, black, tan and grey colors. The size variability is also there, i.e. the animals live in the high altitude have compact body with smaller body size and the animals live in the river and plain area get larger body size.
The cattle of this breed reaches to puberty at the age of 2 years in good feeding conditions. The milk production is 18 to 30 piala (Piala is a local measurement, measure with local tea cup and 8 piala is one kg) daily, in ordinary grazing system. Body condition score is always good than the pure and cross Friesian. The milk is also thick, very high consumer preference and produces more ghee. The ghee of the breed is highly preferred and many Pashto poems are singing to praise it.
Vegetation: The vegetation like by Kohe-Suleimani cattle is mainly composed of bush, mainly found in the streams and river banks. The main vegetations are comprised of Sargasse, Saba, Mashkana, Surmagh or Spermagh, Lukha, Viza, Barvasa and Saba etc.
Population: The breed is found in a large territory of Balochistan and also in the adjoining parts of Punjab and Pakhtoonkhua provinces. The population estimation is for the areas falling in the Balochistan province is about 1.8 million and the trend is increasing.
Special traits:
v They climb in mountains and use the vegetation of the high altitudes
v Consume highly fibrous material
v The disease register is very low, highly resistant to trypanosomiasis and other ticks diseases.
v The kal sakhta (resistant to dry years)
v Milk production is persistent and not adversely affected by weather and feed scarcity
v Very hardy animal and use for draught power in mountains
v The yakh sakhta (resistant to cold weather)
Option hopes: More effective tool against drought, because of its climbing ability and consuming highly fibrous feed
Economic importance: The male animals once mainly use for draught power is now getting very higher prices in market for its meat quality. Mostly male animals are sold at the age of 3 years at the occasion of EidulAdha and catch very high prices. The milk is mainly use for family use and extra milk is converted in ghee. The ghee is usually consume at family level but extra is sell out by the women of the family and the earning goes to women. This breed is very important for woman.
This is what we expect to happen with our cows in India at least to return to the olden days – actually though India and pre partition India had huge cattle wealth – the cows were emotionally happy – freely grazing and their calves along with and in the days when exotic blood was not introduced , bulls had equal importance regionally being major part of agriculture. The extreme industrialization with out consideration of the welfare and genetic diversity has destroyed the Indian Cattle wealth in the name of progressive dairy industry and milk revolution.
DR.THIRUGNANAM GANESH