Dairy farming plays a very important role in improving the economy of rural India. The study was conducted to explore the socio-economic profile of dairy farmers and farmers feedback about dairy development project. The survey was conducted to study the education status, family structure, education status and management of animals, different patterns of rearing of dairy animals and status of milk production. Data was collected from the 3000 dairy farmers of three states namely Maharashtra, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh during year  2016 .Concentration of poor farmers was relatively high in Bihar (35.5%), followed by Uttar Pradesh (30.9%) and 16.3% in case of Maharashtra. Average family size show 8.74 members per household in Bihar, 6.76 members in  Uttar Pradesh  and 6.17 members in Maharashtra. Results revealed that majority of the families were nuclear families. Main source of income was agriculture which includes livestock farming. As regards to the size of land owned, nearly 56% of the landowners were Marginal farmers (owning 0.1 -1 ha of land), 23% were small (1.1-2 ha) landowners while about 12% farmers owned above 2 ha of land. Literacy level was higher among farmers of Maharashtra (71.6%) as compared to Uttar Pradesh (65.8%) and Bihar (65.4%). Majority of the farmers followed mixed cropping system, Maximum number of cows and buffaloes were owned by the farmers of Maharashtra i.e. 3.37 cows and 1.42 buffaloes, followed by Uttar Pradesh (1.60 cows & 1.42 buffaloes) and Bihar (1.75 cows & 0.24 buffaloes).Farmers of Maharashtra owned maximum percentage of crossbred cows (90.97%), followed by Uttar Pradesh (83.4%) and Bihar (75.9%).Maharashtra farmers  possessed maximum number of upgraded buffaloes (79.4%), followed by Bihar (55.7%) and Uttar Pradesh (51.5%). In study of average quantity of milk produced by cows was higher among the crossbred cows (10.18 litres), in indigenous cows it was (4.47 litres) and 4.23 liters in Non-Descript cows. The data shows the same pattern of milk produced across the three states with slight variation. In buffaloes, the average quantity of milk produced was observed to be higher among the upgraded buffaloes (8.42 litres) as compared to Non-Descript buffaloes (5.17 litres). Respondents appreciated the fact that due to dairy development project by BAIF their family and social status have increased.

The objective of the study was to identify the factors affecting variation in conception rate of buffaloes inseminated by Murrah bulls’ frozen semen under field conditions. Total of 18,396 insemination records pertaining to 11,793 buffaloes that were inseminated artificially at BAIF’s field AI centers during the period of June 2010 to December 2014 in 3 states. Logistic regression analysis was used to compute the odds ratio and probability of conception rate. Records were classified according to agroclimatic zones, lactation order, season of insemination and body condition score. Agroclimatic zones, lactation order and body condition score showed significant variation. The overall conception rate was 48.01%. Conception rate of western plain zone of Uttar Pradesh was higher than other zones under study. Body condition score 3 was favourable where probability of conception was 0.51. Conception rate of first parity buffaloes was lower than other parities with the probability of 0.46. Conception rate increased in second parity with probability 0.52. Highest conception rate was found in fourth parity with probability 0.53. There was marginal difference between second to fifth parity. Season of insemination did not affect conception rate, however, the distribution of artificial inseminations was higher during the favourable season than that during lean-season. It could be inferred that the factors like agroclimatic zones, lactation order and body condition score should be considered while evaluating the conception rates in buffaloes.

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Data on 98336 artificial inseminations (AI) performed during 6 years (January 2010 to November 2015) on 56037 field animals owned by 29097 farmers’ from 44 cattle development centres spread across two districts of Maharashtra state were collected and analyzed. Whole data set was classified according to districts (Beed, Jalgaon), economic status of farmers (APL, BPL), animal breed (HF cross, Indigenous, Jersey cross, Non-descript), parity of animal (heifer, first, second, third, fourth, fifth calvers), animal body condition score (no rib exposed, one rib exposed, two ribs exposed, three ribs exposed), heat stage (early, mid, late), season of AI (rainy-June to September, winter-October to January, summer-February to May), bull breed used for AI ( HF, HF crossbreed, Jersey, Jersey crossbreed, Indigenous), AI sequence number (1,2,3) and AI Year (2010 to 2015). Least square analysis was used to compute conception rate. The results revealed overall mean conception rate as 46.2 ± 0.51% and it was significantly (p les than 0.01) higher in Beed district, Jersey crossbreed animals, animals having fourth parity, animals exhibiting one rib exposed, early heat and animals inseminated with Indigenous breed bulls semen, first AI sequence number and during the year 2015 compared with respective groups of parameters under study. However, effect of season of AI and economic condition of farmers did not affect conception rate in animals under field conditions of Maharashtra.

The present investigation was carried out to study the effect of foot and mouth disease vaccination on seminal traits of 30 Holstein Friesian (HF) bulls, 3-5 years old, maintained at BAIF Central Research Station, Uruli Kanchan, Pune, India. The study period was from August to September 2013 and semen quality traits were evaluated on each bull maintained under identical feeding and management regimes. A total of 180 semen ejaculates were collected with one ejaculate from each bull at 3 days interval in a week at 15 days before, 15 and 30 days after FMD vaccination. Raksha Ovac vaccine of Indian Immunologicals Ltd. was used for vaccination purpose. Seminal traits like fresh and post thaw sperm motility, sperm concentration, semen volume, live and dead count, plasma membrane integrity were evaluated for all the ejaculates. Data on seminal traits were analysed by using one way ANOVA. Results revealed that vaccination had significant (P<0.05) effect on post thaw motility and highly significant (P<0.01) deleterious effect on HOS test, head and mid piece abnormalities; however no effect was noted on ejaculate volume, sperm concentration, initial motility, viability and tail abnormalities. The observations showed that vaccination alters the seminal traits of pure HF bulls.