A Murrah buffalo dam no. P2269 in its third lactation delivered a male calf at around 8.30 am in the morning and then after an hour at 9.30am a female calf was born to the same dam at dairy farm of Guru Angad Dev Veterinary & Animal Sciences University. While delivering the information Dr.M.L.Mehra, Incharge Dairy Farm said that both the calves were born without any assistance and the delivery was normal. The male calf weighed 28 Kgs where as the second one the female one weighed 32 Kgs at birth. He said that a limited amount of research has been dedicated to examine the incidence of multiple births in buffaloes. Earlier dairy cattle were considered to be experiencing a higher frequency of twinning. The Bos Indicus breeds experienced 0.2% and 0.4% twinning rates. Brown Swiss has the highest twinning frequency of 8.9%. In cattle 95 % of the heifers born twin to a bull are not fertile and are called freemartins. Buffaloes have a longer gestation period than cattle. Twins are rare, and their occurrence is less than 1 per 1000 births. The dam was inseminated with Murrah bull no 3591 under an ICAR run project “Network Project on Buffaloes.” Rocel C. Felix - Filipino animal scientists at the Philippine Carabao Center in the Science City of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija achieved a break through by producing the world’s first twin test-tube buffaloes using the embryo technology.
The weight of the healthy young ones is indicative of better management at the dairy farm of the University."
