When Priti invited me for a dairy trail (organised as Soil and Soul event) at Shreyas dairy in Bidadi, I was excited and looking forward to spend a nice time at the farm and learn about cows. The experience was way beyond my expectation and I was full of awe when Devanand, owner of the farm started explaining the specialty of Indian cows. I have tried to summarize all that I learnt at the farm.
Indian Cows then and Indian Cows now!
There were more than 100 breeds of Indian cows during 1940s but today we can hardly find 30 breeds of which many are at the verge of extinction. There were more than 80 Crores of cows in India then and now there are only around 5 crores.
Why are they getting endangered?
According to ancient wisdom, there are 5 types of Mothers for all of us, each one worshiped as God
1. Vedamata: Divine Mother in the form of wisdom
2. Gomata: Kamadhenu in the form of cow
3. Bhumata: our motherland, Earth
4. Swamata: our own mother
5. Gangamata: in the form of Sacred Ganges
Despite such beliefs, today there are more than 1 Lakh cows slaughtered everyday in India for meat. Though there are strict laws in India that either prohibit cattle slaughter or ban killing cattle below a certain age, there has been illegal slaughtering of these cows. Shockingly, India ranks 5th in the world in beef production, 7th in domestic consumption and 1st in exporting. Wikipedia reference
Why are Indian cows in huge demand now?
People have realized the importance of Indian cows that have very special characteristics which are not found in other breeds.
Some of them being,
1. Indian cows produce A2 milk:
What does that mean?
Several thousand years ago, A2 variety of beta-casein mutated into the A1 version in some European dairy herds. A lot of people cannot digest A1 milk and recent studies have shown that A1 milk causes a lot of health conditions like heart diseases, diabetes, autism etc. Reference link here. More on beta-casein.
Indian cows are known to produce A2 variant that helps overcome/reduce heart diseases, diabetes, autism and other diseases and also enhance the physical and mental health.
2. Suryakethu nadi: A special nerve is present from the hump till tail which absorbs solar energy and converts into traces of gold. These particles are present in their milk which gives the yellowish tint (only the milk of these cows are yellow in color), dung and urine. The cow products are considered sacred due to these particles which give the medicinal properties.
This is only present in pure Indian breeds and no other animal has this nadi. Other breeds of cows do not have this nadi and the milk, dung and urine have no medicinal properties.
3. Contain pranic energy: These cows contain aura filled with pranic energy which purifies the surroundings. Even today, as part of a Hindu house warning ritual, a cow is brought inside the house and worshipped as the aura is known to purify the house, correct any vastu irregularities and fill with abundant positive energy. Studies have shown that the BP patients have benefited the healing property by just stroking these cows' bodies.
Some more interesting facts about Indian cows:
1. They specifically have a hump above their shoulders and dewlap (a prominent specific fold of skin below neck) which are not found in other breeds.
2. They show deep emotions like human beings where as other breeds are observed not to display such emotions.
3. The dung of Indian cows emit pleasant odor and is thick in consistency whereas other breeds emit unpleasant odor and thin consistency with no medicinal properties.
4. These cows have higher level of consciousness and are very intuitive in nature.
5. They have highly developed sweat glands that can withstand high temperature and the oily secretion from the sebaceous glands produce a distinctive odor that repel insects.
6. Sadly, Indian cows are becoming endangered due to ignorance. Few decades ago, in villages, every house used to have these cows. But now, either they have stopped rearing cows or switched to genetically modified cows as they produce more milk and require less maintenance compared to pure Indian breed. And many are being killed in illegal slaughtering.
7. The gestation period is more like that of human beings of around 9-10 months.
8. The ghee made out of the milk from these cows emit huge amounts of oxygen when poured on fire during hawans and this aids in purification of the entire surroundings.
Devanand and his brother, Shyam Purohit have started the dairy farm venture with Indian Cows despite a lot of discouragement, as rearing Indian cows might lead to loss than profit. When asked why the risky path, Devanand explained that its the heart driven decision and deep felt love for these cows that made them start it. And also explained why they chose "Shreyas", as the name itself answers the question "Why the risky path?!" :) And the explanation for Shreyas is, it means appropriate, good, correct noble path as against Preyas which means easy, pleasant, convenient path.
It has been 6 months since they've started the dairy and it was heart warming to see the two brothers along with their families completely dedicated to farm activities.
They have the following breeds,
- Gyr from Gujrath
- Hallikar from Karnataka
- Ongole from Andhra Pradesh
They are all pretty young, around 2 yr old.
Priti explaining the damages caused by human beings and how we can take steps to make things better.
Priti showed us an amazing video of how everything is connected and how everything has a life and how human beings are destroying the planet.
My heart stopped beating for a moment when I saw tear drops rolling down Kaveri's eyes when Devanand started stroking her. When I asked why she did that, he explained about the emotional nature of these cows and it seems she had hurt her leg and she wanted to convey that.
Baby Manvi and baby Sita enjoying their food and the kids enjoying looking at these babies :)
Kapila, supposed to be very auspicious which is 1 in 100s. These cows have black face, black front part of legs, teats and tail.
Devanand introducing us to all the cows. It seems they recently named all the cows and the names are very beautiful.
I found this guy, Sundaram to be the cutest of all. Unfortunately, I dint get a close up of his whole body. He is pretty huge :)
Munch.. munch.., happily grazing! :)
Kids lost in their world of love and compassion!
A chunk of compost. From close we could see lots of species in it. It seems such a compost can convert even a barren land into a very prosperous land.
Playtime! After feeding, the cows are let to go play. They have made a nice playground :) It was awesome to see the pattern set in cows. They go play for a while and once tired, they all return to their exact places, drink water and rest.
At the playground!
These are cowdung cakes! :) By burning them , the whole surrounding gets purified and can be used for driving away mosquitoes, flies etc. They shared some with me and Priti, need to experiment now. :)
Jeevamrutha:
Is an organic liquid fertilizer that significantly enhances the quality of soil and inturn the growth of plants. It is made out of jaggery, besan flour, cow dung, cow urine and water.
It was fun learning the preparation of Jeevamrutha. The kids also got a hands-on with the preparation and they thoroughly enjoyed. We also witnessed a healthy part of the crop that was fed Jeevamrutha that also had started flowering vs the part of crop that was fed urea.
Priti taught us how to make a fly trap in a very simply way with just a used water bottle and some used groundnuts after extracting oil.
Final stirring and finishing touches by the experts for preparing "Jeevamrutha" :)
This was the best part! Kids enjoyed playing on haystack, we as well :) Resting on haystack was so therapeutic.
Also we got to taste yummy milk! :)
Lovely mom and adorable daughter! :)
Doesn't this remind of reversi game? :)
Manvi resting after lunch.
Sita resting after lunch.
On the way back it rained and the NICE road looked beautiful!
Another lovely view from NICE road!
Many thanks to Priti, Devanand, Shyam and Devashree for such an enriching experience. My best wishes for a wonderful journey with Shreyas dairy farm.
If you wish to visit the farm, you can
- let me know
- contact Priti from Soil and Soul, fb link.
- contact Devanand,
- mobile no. 8867739306
- email: sn.devanand@gmail.com
