LAHORE, April 28: A majority of milch animals in the cattle colonies of Karachi and Hyderabad are kept in unhygienic conditions and are disproportionately overfed, says an analyses and review report.

Cattle owners claim a strength of nine million animals comprising a preponderant majority of buffaloes but officials place the population at 7.5 million. Milk is available at Rs17.5 per litre at colony gate while its sale price in Karachi and Hyderabad ranges from Rs23 to Rs26 for the same quantity.

Asked if the litre consisted purely of milk and included no percentage of water, an official who was associated with the analyses-cum-review exercise responded with just a meaningful smile. The report was recently prepared with a view to ascertaining prevailing conditions and identifying the requirements of the colonies.

Of the eight colonies in Karachi, around the National Highway and Hyderabad, the biggest is the Landhi cattle colony housing about 200,000 buffaloes.

Animals are packed in pens that have little room for movement. They are heavily fed with dry concentrates but other food required by the body and essential for production needs are totally ignored. The report has stated that animals are not provided any green fodder and they are never taken to any pasture. Sanitary conditions were found ‘extremely unsatisfactory’ by the report that described most pens producing an unhealthy ‘smell’.

It was also felt that local governments were not playing any part in improving sanitary conditions in the cattle colonies.

The colonies have given a boost to private veterinary service that are more expensive and more resourceful than provincial veterinary services but many cattle owners can apparently afford the expense because of the size of the herds they maintain.

Many owners have over 100 stock while there one owner has about 4,000 buffaloes. Most of the buffaloes in the colonies are purchased or smuggled from the Punjab while the rest are from areas in upper Sindh.

A feature of these colonies is that animals are hardly used for breeding purposes. Cattle owners in these colonies consider breeding a long drawn practice that was uneconomical too. The easier and more profitable way is slaughtering animals when they dry up to provide meat needs of the massive population of Karachi.

Experts feel this is a negative practice causing the loss of animals with the best genetic potential. Their reproductive quality is thus wasted. The number of animals used for breeding has been described by the report as ‘negligible’. —Zafar Samdani