Meet Anmol, the bull whose one climax is worth ₹50,000

Elite bull Anmol with Palvinder Gill, his 22-year-old owner and caretaker, at Kot Bakht village, Bathinda, Punjab. (Sayantan Bera/Mint)
Elite bull Anmol with Palvinder Gill, his 22-year-old owner and caretaker, at Kot Bakht village, Bathinda, Punjab. (Sayantan Bera/Mint)

Summary

  • At Mint, we often narrate stories about the stock market’s bull run. But this one is about a real bull, one who has fathered over 25,000 calves! He is a social media star, can pose, and walks the ramp to loud cheer. Check out his market value.

Bathinda/Hisar: For a while, Anmol has been under the weather. The past few months were hectic. Now eight years and two months-old, Anmol has been on a 3,000-km long road trip travelling to animal shows in different states. Travelling long distances on a truck is not easy when one weighs one and a half tonnes and is 5 feet 8 inches tall. Minus the tail, he is about 10 feet long. But the gruelling rides were worth the effort. Anmol won multiple awards in Pushkar, Rajasthan, and Meerut, Uttar Pradesh.

But he returned home with a liver infection—apparently from munching too many moongfalis (groundnuts in shell) while at the melas. Ever since, Anmol has been on a diet, recovering under the supervision of a veterinarian, and has shed about 200 kg of body weight.

Anmol is neither taking a bath regularly or oil massages. Morning walks, which are part of his daily routine, are temporarily suspended. He is also off his princely diet, which includes cashews, almonds, apples, milk and eggs (gives his coat a shine). Instead, his meals now consist of green fodder, plant protein and grain-based feed, plus saline drips and pills. Just the medicines cost around 35,000 a month, a small price for what he is worth.

Anmol, meaning ‘priceless’ in Hindi, is an elite bull belonging to the Murrah breed of buffaloes native to Haryana. Murrah buffaloes are known for their distinct physical features—tightly curled horns, jet-black skin and a massive physique. They are an indigenous breed prized for high yields, with the best buffaloes producing more than 20 litres of milk per day. Not just within India, the Murrah has travelled far and wide, from Nepal and Bangladesh to distant countries like Brazil and Bulgaria, where they were used to improve local breeds.

Murrah buffaloes are known for their distinct physical features—tightly curled horns, jet black skin and a massive physique. (Sayantan Bera/Mint)
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Murrah buffaloes are known for their distinct physical features—tightly curled horns, jet black skin and a massive physique. (Sayantan Bera/Mint)

For dairy farmers rearing buffaloes, Anmol is a prized animal because of his semen, which is used for artificial insemination to impregnate female buffaloes. In the dairy industry, an elite bull is considered half the herd, which signifies the bull’s genetic contribution to the herd’s productivity.

Though Anmol has been denied the pleasures of natural mating, his semen has travelled quite a distance, too. Recently, a buyer from Tamil Nadu travelled all the way to Kot Bakht village in Punjab’s Bathinda district to purchase his semen straws (plastic straws used to store semen). On his return, the buyer had to cancel his flight ticket and book a cab instead. The airline would not allow cryogenic cylinders—where semen straws are stored at -196 degrees Celsius in liquid nitrogen—on board.

The showstopper

Palvinder Gill, the 22-year-old owner and caretaker, estimates that Anmol has fathered over 25,000 calves. Being in the prime of his youth, he will father tens of thousands more. A bull can live up to 20 years and produce semen up to 18 years of age. The handsome returns from selling his semen is one reason why Anmol received an eye-popping bid of 23 crore at the Pushkar cattle fair in November last year, from a Gujarati businessman, local media reported. The other reason is the pride of owning a purebred elite bull. A literal showstopper, you can find hundreds of videos of Anmol on YouTube and Instagram.

To be sure, Anmol isn’t the only one. In rural Haryana, where rearing elite bulls is a subculture, several bulls, like Yuvraj from Kurukshetra and Gholu II from Panipat, have made headlines in the past.

The handsome returns from selling his semen is one reason why Anmol received an eye-popping bid of 23 crore at the Pushkar cattle fair in November last year.

Despite his massive size, Anmol is surprisingly calm and gentle, his eyes innocent like a baby calf’s. He is used to the crowd and noise at rural fairs, where some visitors even ride on his back to click photos or crawl under him to test his patience. In December, when this reporter visited Kot Bakht, Anmol was basking in the morning sun in the courtyard of his owner’s house. He stood up to pose for photos after Gill instructed him in Hindi. He would not sit until told.

On what basis is a bull awarded in cattle shows? Mostly it is the physical features which indicate breed purity, Gill said. These include the curl of its horn, the colour of its skin and tongue (black or grey but not pink), the size of its testicles, and the compactness of its body with a V-shaped hind view.

Usually, Anmol travels to cattle fairs with his young daughters who are put up for sale—with their parental pedigree used as the unique selling point. Before showtime, Anmol gets a clean shave and an oil massage to give his coat a resplendent shine. And then, he appears and walks into the ring to loud drum beats and cheers. He does not have to do more than take a few rounds and be open to a physical inspection by judges. For consecutive years, in 2023 and 2024, Anmol was crowned the most beautiful bull at Pushkar, a popular cattle fair in India.

Anmol has won multiple awards in cattle fairs across Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. (Sayantan Bera/Mint)
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Anmol has won multiple awards in cattle fairs across Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. (Sayantan Bera/Mint)

A buffalo’s worth

India is the top milk producer in the world—239 million tonnes in 2023-24—but average yields per animal are among the lowest in the world. Buffaloes contribute over 45% to total milk production despite far fewer numbers when compared to the population of in-milk or milch cows. Data from the animal husbandry department show that on average, buffaloes yield close to 6 kg of milk per day, which goes up to 11 kg per day in states like Haryana, home to superior breeds like the Murrah.

In comparison, desi (indigenous) cows yield just 3.5 kg per day. The average for exotic and cross-bred cows is 8.4 kg per animal per day.

“In India we produce more milk with more animals. This suited us because the dairy sector comprises millions of small farmers who cannot afford to rear high-yielding animals since that pushes feed and maintenance costs higher," said Tirtha Kumar Datta, director at the Central Institute of Research on Buffaloes (CIRB), Hisar.

According to Datta, global yields are higher because low-yielding and unproductive animals are moved out from dairy to meat production. Because cows are not culled in India due to cultural and religious reasons, low-yielding animals continue to produce milk, driving down average productivity.

But buffaloes are allowed to be slaughtered for their meat (Hindu mythology delegates them to the asuras or demons). This removes unproductive animals including male bulls, which ensures genetic improvement of the herd. Besides producing more milk, buffaloes also fetch their owners an end-of-life value from meat. India is counted among the leading exporters of carabeef (buffalo meat) globally. In 2023-24, the country exported buffalo meat worth 31,000 crore.

Overall, a buffalo is worth more economically to a farmer compared to cows. But still, can a bull be realistically valued at 23 crore?

Datta from CIRB thinks such valuations are hype which defy scientific and economic logic. To begin with, a bull must come from a pedigree—carrying the germplasm of elite parents—which is scientifically documented. Only then is it considered ‘pedigree selected.’ The other criterion is to test its progeny or calculate the milk yields of tens of buffaloes fathered by the bull, over several years. If average milk yields turn out to be high, the bull is marked as ‘progeny tested’ or a PT-tested bull. This is a long process which takes 7-8 years. So, PT-tested bulls are rare.

A bull must come from a pedigree—carrying the germplasm of elite parents—which is scientifically documented. Only then is it considered ‘pedigree selected.’

How does Anmol fare on these criteria? As per Gill, the owner, Anmol’s father was from the Hisar institute (an elite bull marked M29) and his mother, who belonged to the Gill family, had a peak yield of 25 kg 181 gm in a day. His daughters have been recorded to yield a peak production of 21 kgs of milk in a day. These records are not the average of a milking cycle (which lasts over 300 days) but a selected peak. So, while Anmol can be loosely termed as ‘pedigree selected,’ he is surely not ‘progeny tested.’ Even for a PT-tested bull, its economic value over a lifetime will not exceed 8-10 crore, scientists at CIRB, Hisar, argued.

Still, Anmol is an elite bull and a rare find. When elite bulls die, their superior germplasm (genes) also die with them. Which is why the Hisar institute is cloning (making genetic copies) the best available bulls on its farm. Cloning guarantees a constant supply of semen from elite bulls long after the original ones are dead. This helps to supply semen for artificial insemination and leads to breed improvement. For instance, the Hisar institute made seven clones of M-29, the bull which fathered Anmol.

A cloned Murrah bull at CIRB, Hisar. (Sayantan Bera/Mint)
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A cloned Murrah bull at CIRB, Hisar. (Sayantan Bera/Mint)

Artificial insemination is currently used on a third of female buffaloes of a total population of 100 million in India. The target is to increase coverage to 50%, which means a growing requirement of elite bull semen. In 2023-24, CIRB Hissar produced 260,000 semen doses from Murrah and other buffalo breeds like Nili Ravi and Jaffrabadi, to distribute to farmers.

Earnings per orgasm

Once in a while, Anmol travels to a private semen collection facility in Karnal, Haryana, some 250 km away. There, over a day or two, his semen is collected with the help of an artificial vagina (AV) which mimics the temperature and physical shape of a natural one. He is mounted on a female or a male buffalo and, the sperm is collected by the AV device.

One ejaculation produces between 2-4 ml of sperm, which is diluted with egg yolk and glycerol. Some antibiotics are added to prevent bacterial contamination. A single ejaculation can generate up to 200 semen straws,worth over 50,000.

The straws then undergo gradual cooling, first to 4 degrees Celsius and then -196 degrees in liquid nitrogen cryogenic containers. The semen straws stored in these containers can be used centuries later after thawing and ensuring that sperms are motile (moving spontaneously under a microscope).

Cryogenic containers that store semen straws. (Sayantan Bera/Mint)
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Cryogenic containers that store semen straws. (Sayantan Bera/Mint)

Over the course of two days, Anmol is made to ejaculate five-six times, from which around 1,000 semen straws are prepared. Each semen straw is sold for 250-300, implying earnings of at least 2,50,000 per visit to the collection centre. Gill said the family makes anywhere between 3-5 lakh per month from selling semen straws, depending on demand. Of course, the family spends a hefty sum—about 40,000 per month—on Anmol’s upkeep. In addition, the semen facility charges a fee to prepare the straws.

Despite the lucrative returns, Anmol’s future is uncertain and he may soon retire from cattle shows. “So far, he has come first in four and second in two shows. But we will withdraw him from competitions because he should not be the only one winning. Other bull owners should also be encouraged and rewarded for their efforts. That is how nasal sudhar (breed improvement) happens," Gill said.

The other reason why Anmol may retire early is that the Gill family is planning to sell him—they are awaiting a final offer—and use the proceeds to move to Australia, where their extended family is settled. If they do let go of Anmol, the Gill family will be left with memories. Old family albums are full of photos of Anmol. At barely five, he would return home triumphant from cattle shows, draped in garlands made of currency notes and pose for the camera like a celebrity.

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