Malaysia totally depend on the import dairy product to fulfil the demand on the dairy products. This due to increase on consciousness of consumer on the nutritional benefits of dairy products as well as rising on preference towards dairy-derived products has contributed to increase in demand for dairy product in Malaysia. Therefore, for 50 years ago, the government find the ways to formulate the policies and suggest steps to meet this demand. Some of the breed from outside of Malaysia like Australia, New Zealand and United Kingdom were imported to Malaysia to increase the production of milk. The types of dairy cows in Malaysia are Jersey, Milking Shorthorn, Holstein Friesian, Friesian Sahiwal, Sahiwal and Brown Swiss.
For this research study, the types of breed will be used are Holstein Friesian breed and Sahiwal breed. Holstein Friesian breed and Sahiwal breed are popular breed that used in Malaysia as dairy cow. Moreover, these two breeds can adapt well with tropical place which are high temperature and high relative humidity.
2.1.1 HOLSTEIN FRIESIAN BREED
Figure 1: Holstein Friesian breed
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holstein_Friesian_cattle
Holstein cattle are the most outstanding of cow breed in the United States from the seven major dairy breeds. Their colour is black and white, Holstein cattle are easily recognizable. Based on the Holstein Association USA, the origin place for Holstein breed is from Netherlands around 2000 years ago. Holstein breed produced from crossbreeding between two breeds of cattle which are black animals from the Batavians and white animals from the Friesians. The benefit of this crossbreeding is Holstein Friesian can produce higher amount of milk even though there are limited feed resources. This breed more simply known as Holstein although the full name is Holstein Friesian. Friesian breed is different from Holstein Friesian breed because the crossbreeding with the Batavians, but Friesian cattle still existed which came from the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Holland and these breeds is smaller in size than Holstein Friesian cattle.
The size of Holstein Friesian is big with black and white or red and white colour pattern depending on its parents’ genes. However, most of the colour of Holstein Friesian in Malaysia is black and white, therefore they easily recognized because of their different colour from cow breeds in Malaysia. Usually, the most colour of cows in Malaysia are brown and white. The recessive gene for colour pattern is red and white which occurs when both mother or dam and father or sire are carriers or exhibit the trait themselves. For healthy Holstein calf, the average weigh is between 40kg to 50 kg or more at birth depend on nutrient that they got from their mother and average weigh for mature Holstein cow is typically between 680kg to 770 kg. For their height, it can be around 145 cm to 165 cm. Holstein heifers can be bred at 15 months of age, when they weigh about 800 pounds. It is desirable to have Holstein females calve for the first time between 24 and 27 months of age. Holstein gestation is approximately nine months. The normal productive life of a Holstein is six year while other cows can live longer than that.
In USA, the average actual production of Holstein Friesian species about 25,676 pounds of milk each lactation, 963 pounds of butterfat and 799 pounds of protein per year in 2017. The average annual production for registered Australian Holstein is up to 18,000 litres of milk per lactation which are contain 3,82% of fat and 3.21% of protein. The average lactation period for Holstein Friesian species in Australia is 305 days (Australia’s Livestock Exporter,2018). Based on the data from the Holstein Milk Company in 2015, the average milk which is produced by 584 cows is 9,000 litres per day. The milking is done twice a day at 5am and 5pm. Holstein Friesian breed can start to produce their milk when their age around 2 years old.
2.1.2 SAHIWAL BREED
Figure 2: Female Sahiwal breed
Source: http://14.139.252.116/agris/briddescription.aspx
Sahiwal is a breed of Zebu cattle which used as dairy production in the tropical environment (Khan et al, 2018). The Sahiwal breed were originated along Indian-Pakistani border which at the dry Punjab region. This breed was found around 7000 to 8000 years prior on the Indus plain, truly in the area of Ganji bar currently including the regions of Sahiwal and Okara in the Punjab. This place is represented by subtropical and dry atmosphere. The temperature at this place can increase up to more than 45oC in the middle of year (Buffalo Breeder, 2018). Sahiwal breed also called as Lola (loose skin), Lambi Bar, Montgomery, Multani and Tel (Yadav et al, 2018). The history of Sahiwal breed is migrants from India imported several non-descript mixtures of Indian cattle breed (Local Indian Dairy) since ear since the early part of the twentieth century and introduced dairying as an agricultural activity.
The range colour of this breed is brownish red until to more predominant red, with varying amounts of white on the neck and the underline. The characteristics between male Sahiwal and female are difference. For males, the colour darkens towards the head, neck, legs and tail while for the female is lighter for those parts. These cattle also known as drooping ears. The weight for mature Sahiwal breed at the average of 425kg and their height are 136 and 120 cm for male and female respectively.
It is one of the best Indian dairy breeds. The reasons are because they resistance to tick and parasites, high production of milk, tolerant to heat for both internal and external body and adaptability to low input systems (Khan et al. 2018). Because of their benefits, Sahiwal cattle have been exported to other Asian countries like Malaysia, China, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh as well as Africa, New Zealand and Australia which has a same temperature and environment with their original region. Sahiwal breed can produce around 1400kg to 2500kg milk during lactation while breastfeeding a calf and even increases milk yields without suckling a calf. The age of calving is between 37 to 48 months and the calving internal from 430 to 580 days (Yadav et al, 2018). Sahiwal breed can produce around 8 to 10kg of milk per day with a fat content of approximately 4.5% and average lactation period around 10 months. Therefore, the Sahiwal breed is a very good milk producer compared to other local breeds.
2.2 COW’S MILK PRODUCTION DATA IN MALAYSIA
The demand of milk and dairy product are increase over the recent year because of increase of population and changes in eating habits. Malaysia still relies on imports dairy products from other country such as Australia and New Zealand to fulfil our domestic demand. The import value of dairy products started to increase from RM69 million in 1970 to RM69 million in 2014 (Sim & Suntharalingam, 2015). Even though milk production in Malaysia started to increase year by year, but Malaysia still unable to satisfy the dairy production of its populations. Based on previous research, the consumption of fresh whole milk rises by 33% from 32.9 kg per capita to 43.5 kg per capita from 1990 to 2005 (Boniface & Umberger, 2012).
Based on Annual report from Department of Veterinary Services (1998), the self-sufficiency for Milk is only for 4.5%. therefore, dairy market in Malaysia depend on the imported milk and milk product from outside of Malaysia like Australia and New Zealand. To increase milk production in Malaysia, government started to build more cattle farm around Malaysia and used a suitable cow breed like Holstein Friesian, Sahiwal, Jersey and Mafriwal (Dr. Chubashini Suntharalingam & Muhamad Faireal Ahmad). The figure 3 shown the graph of cow’s milk production in Malaysia since 1970 to 2012.
Figure 3: Cow's milk production in Malaysia between 1970 – 2012
Source: Kajian Tinjauan Pasaran Industri Tenusu Malaysia
The effect from the strategies from the government, production of milk risen from 20 million litres in 1970 increase to more than 78 million litres in 2012. Average production of milk depends on the different zone in Malaysia such as milk production in North Peninsular Malaysia is 3784 litres per day, south peninsular Malaysia is 7005 litres per day and for east Malaysia is 7112 litres per day. The two classification of milk production in Malaysia are medium-input system and the rest a high-input system. The medium-input system is using a breed that can adapted to the tropical environment and can be maintained using local feedstuffs while the high-input system is using breed that well managed like have instances closed-house facilities and fed with high quality feed. The duration for milk production for cows in Malaysia is 305 days, which is 2 times a day. However, the cow does not contain any milk if the cow is 7 months pregnant. The status of the dairy industry in Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah since 1990 is shown in Table 1 and Table 2.
Table 1 Status of the Dairy Industry in Peninsular Malaysia (1990 – 2010)
Parameter Year
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
Total Dairy Animals N/A N/A 37,854 25,843 34,386
No. of Milking Cows N/A N/A 14,635 9, 617 12,646
Milk Production (mil. Litres) 26.20 31.87 24.42 34.06 67.00
Milk Yield per Cow per lactation (litres) N/A N/A 1,669 2,631 2,659
Lactation Length (days) N/A N/A N/A 300 270
Carving Interval (days) N/A N/A N/A 487 475
Sources: Malaysian Livestock Breeding Policy (2013)
Table 2 Status of the Dairy Industry in Sabah (1990 – 2010)
Parameter Year
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
Total Dairy Animals 1,870 3,410 2,360 3,632 7,180
No. of Milking Cows 1,140 1,740 1,830 2,725 4,204
Milk Production (mil. Litres) 2.0 4.89 4.99 7.48 10.4
Milk Yield per Cow per lactation (litres) 1,758 1,905 2,009 2,325 2,470
Lactation Length (days) 272 279 275 282 267
Carving Interval (days) 386 389 402 381 398
Sources: Malaysian Livestock Breeding Policy (2013)
Milk composition is related to animal nutrition (Fievez, Colman, Castro-Montoya, Stefanov, & Vlaeminck, 2012). Basically, the quality and quantity of milk depends upon genetic and environmental factors. Considering the environmental ones, nutrition is the most important determinant of milk chemical composition, followed by production system, health status, as well as the effect of herd and labor (Collomb et al. 2002; Nałęcz-Tarwacka 2006). Therefore, analysis of milk composition enables the monitoring of cows that secrete low quality milk and the detection of failures in nutritional management, allowing decision making to correct problems. Take for example, the urea content in milk is used as indication of excess protein in the diet or poor quality that protein.
Care should be taken regarding the interpretation of results, as there may be other predisposing factors, such as cow's age and body condition. The most importance factor to produce the high production of cow’s milk is the cow should be fed with enough food and high quality of food. Based on Department of Veterinary Services, dairy cow needs at least 10% of fresh grass from its weight. It also requires extra food to allow it to produce more amount of milk. For the examples, bran is required as much as 1 kg for every 2kg of milk produced in a day. Therefore, the dairy cows require higher amount of food for good quality and high amount of milk, and for breeding. In this context, the present study aimed to determine the milk composition of milk and to evaluate the quality of milk of Holstein Friesian (HF) and Local Indian Dairy.
Table 3 Chemical composition of the cow’s diet (Reference Holstein 4)
Chemical composition Dry matter (%)
Maize silage 45.62
Alfalfa silage 8.49
Grass silage 2.89
Vitamin and mineral premix 0.2
Sodium Chloride 0.1
Sodium bicarbonate 0.7
Limestone 0.3
Concentrate (commercial) 41.7
Crude protein (%) 15.82
Ether extract (%) 1.63
Ash (%) 3.56
Crude fiber (%) 9.32
Acid Detergent Fiber (%) 21.5
Neutral Detergent Fiber(%) 36.2
Unit of Milk Production/kg Dry Matter 0.93