People in the villages situated on the bank of the famous salt lake Chilika in Orissa rear buffaloes with almost zero input. These animals, endowed with the special quality of entering deep into the lake and feeding on the vegetation that grows there, help to maintain the natural ecosystem and provide good earnings for the rural people. This biodiversity in buffalo germplasm needs to be preserved. The mean body length, girth, height at withers and weight were 122.3±0.2 cm, 169.7±0.3 cm, 123.9±2.7 cm and 320.0±0.7 kg, respectively. The mean age at first calving was 1 331.4±6.8 days. The average of the first two calving intervals was 431.7±3.6 days. The average daily milk yield of the first three lactations and lactation length was 2.6±0.01 kg and 238.7±2.1 days, respectively. Most of the economic traits had high heritability. The temperature of the habitat ranges approximately between 15°C in winter to 40°C in summer.
