Cattle farmer celebrates eventful life of Murrah buffalo on deathbed in Haryana

At the age of 25 years, Dhanno, a celebrated Murrah-breed buffalo famous as Black Beauty and having several national and state-level awards to her credit, has been honoured by her owners with the  performance of ‘Jeevan Yagya’ to celebrate her achievements.

‘Jeevan Yagya’, also locally known as ‘Jeevan Kaaj’, is performed to celebrate individuals who have done exceptional work for the family or society when the person is on the deathbed. Dhanno too is on the deathbed as the buffalo’s lifespan has almost reached the limit.

A high milk-yielding cattle, Dhanno had yielded the highest of 26 litres of milk in competitive events. She had been an eight-time champion as the ‘Best Animal of the Show’ in the milk beauty category in cattle shows across the country, including Haryana, Punjab, Delhi and Rajasthan. She had earned Rs 40 lakh in prizes. PM Narendra Modi had also honoured Dhanno at a function at Indian Agricultural Research Institute in Delhi in 2016.

And here is more – she delivered 18 calves in her lifetime and most of them were booked as ‘sold out in advance’ even before birth at prices ranging from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 12 lakh.

Ishwar Singh, owner of Dhanno, said that he purchased the buffalo from Ramana Ramani village in Kaithal district in 2008 for Rs 2.01 lakh. “When she entered our home for the first time, she bagged a prize of Rs 31,000 at a cattle fair,” he said, adding that she had been extremely lucky for the family.

“We organised the ‘Jeevan Yagya’ to give a warm send-off to Dhanno, who is an integral member of our family. She is weak now and very low on feed. We know that her life cycle is about to come to an end,” he said.

Singh said that her calves include 10 females and eight males. He added that one of her offspring fetched the highest price of Rs 18.31 lakh at her first calving. Other younger calves fetched in the range of Rs 10 lakh to Rs 12 lakh. He mentioned that he had gifted the last male calf, named Aalishan, to his friend in Gorchi village of the district.

The village sarpanch, Om Prakash, said that the villagers have been fond of keeping high milk-yielding, high-end Murrah buffaloes for several years. “One of the Murrah buffaloes was sold for Rs 25 lakh in 2013 in our village, which was a national record at that time,” he said.

Dr Rajinder Singh, a retired animal scientist who worked on Murrah development in the state, said that Murrah continues to be the best buffalo breed in the country.