Population estimates of sheep and goat breeds of India
Tantia, M.S.; Vij, P.K.
Indian Journal of Animal Research 34(1): 60-63
2000
ISSN/ISBN: 0367-6722 Document Number: 419438
The breed-wise population for 38 recognized breeds of sheep and 20 breeds of goats was estimated from the records of the Indian Livestock Census, which was conducted in 1992. The tract for each breed was divided into central, adjacent and specified pockets. For sheep, 50-80, 20-50 and 5-20%, and for goats 30-60, 15-30 and 5-15% of the total population was in these categories of the breed tract respectively. The estimates for each breed population are presented in tabular form. Among sheep breeds, the greatest population was for the Deccani breed (4.55 m), followed by Marwari (3.80 m). The estimated population was very low for Nilgiri (3,000), Banapala (5,000) and Gurej (11,000) breeds. Among the goat breeds, the Bengal was estimated to have the highest population numbers (19.44 m) followed by Marwari (3.27 m), whereas Jhakrana and Beetal estimates were minimum, i.e. 52,000 and 54,000 respectively. The Bonpala and Nigiri sheep are at the verge of extinction and need immediate attention for their conservation.