Karthikeyan, SMKSaravanan, RThangaraju, PTANUVAS2019-11-012019-11-012006http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810133711TNV_AGRI_2006_39(25-37)The Krishna Valley breed of cattle is a draught breed able to withstand extremely hot, humid climatic conditions and which has the capacity to undertake heavy work in the black cotton soil in the valleys of the Krishna river in India. Their home tract is restricted to a few taluks (divisions within a district) of the northern parts of Karnataka. The distinguishing morphological features of the breed are the presence of a black-coloured muzzle and black shades dispersed over the body with the lower half of the scrotum also being black in colour. The average values for height, body length and chest girth are 116.4±1.2, 128.4±2.0 and 144.7±2.0 cm in cows; and 150.5±0.5, 146.0±3.0 and 191.0±1.0 cm in bullocks, respectively. The cytogenetic investigation revealed the normal characteristics of cattle chromosomes (2n=60). The microsatellite alleles occurred at frequencies of 0.0208 (ILSTS005) to 0.7604 (ETH152) with the polymorphism information content (PIC) values in the range of 0.3856 (ETH152) to 0.7725 (ILSTS034). The breed has a relatively long productive life as the number of calvings can go up to twelve. As the number of animals of this breed remaining is only in the order of a few hundred, conservation measures are to be taken to avoid the extinction of this valuable germplasm.enVeterinary ScienceArticle