Many are not aware that the Rayanakere Palace Dairy Farm, which was situated about five miles from the city of Mysore in Rayanakere Kaval, towards H D Kote, on Manontody Road, now Manandavadi Road, pioneered modern dairying in the State.

Here high yielding and superior breeds of cows and buffaloes and their calves were maintained to ensure the regular supply of pure milk, curds and butter to the inner departments of the palace. The dairy was run on modern lines and equipped suitably. Most importantly, constant experiment with breeding was the hallmark of the dairy.

Among the breeds of cows maintained here, mention may be made of Amritmahal cows, Sind-bred cows, Delhi cows, Ajmer cows, Baroda cows, Mande cows, English half-bred cows, Angola cows, Gokai cows, Hallikar cows, Ayrshire, Holsteins, Jersies and others.

Milk was supplied to the palace and hospitals regularly. A farm of about 750 acres was attached to the dairy where fodder for the cattle was raised and stored for use. Fodder normally consisted of sunflower, cowpea, jola, horsegram, guinea grass, seed grass, kiki-yu grass, lucerne, elephant grass and phalaris kommertat, among others. Surplus fodder was supplied to the palace stables and gajashala.

The farm was provided with modern machineries such as tractors and ploughs, electric motors, chaff cutters, a self-lift cultivator, “simplex” bullock levellers and others. Animals infected with diseases were segregated at Konan Kottige near Hinkal. Sometimes, milching cows were even sent to Ooty and to other camps to supply milk to the royal party.

Until the year 1919, when steps were taken to establish the Rayanakere Palace Dairy Farm, these cattle were kept near the fort under the supervision of the government livestock expert in the beginning and later in the control of the assistant secretary with a government veterinarian in immediate charge.

According to the Palace Administration Report, the personnel who worked at the dairy were categorised into three divisions: menial staff comprising 13 permanent workers, 37 temporary workers and 45 extra temporary hands; ministerial staff comprising four clerks; and the executive staff comprising an overseer.

The Rayanakere Palace Dairy Farm provided a fine vista from the roadside of cattle stalls, dairy building, silo towers, residential quarters and structures that denoted a busy dairying centre. To its rear could be seen fields and pastures stretching away in the distance with a motorable road to make inspection possible. All these were carved out of the jungle that stretched up to the roadside.

Prominent on the roadside was the temple of Sri Krishna, the Lord of cows, with the paddocks for calves surrounding it. On entering the gate near the temple, a visitor would at once see dairy building in which the milk yield of each cow was recorded. The milk thus collected was dispatched by a motor van to Mysore in sealed cans for the use of palace and palace departments.

To the rear of the dairy building were four cattle stalls with attached calf-pens and two drinking troughs for the cattle in the farm house.

In order to ensure that clean and pure milk was produced under hygienic conditions, the stalls were open all around for good ventilation and had granite stone flooring and cemented mangers.

Since milking was done by hands, milkmen were provided with clean, white garments and care was taken to disinfect milkmen’s hands and the cows’ udder and teats with potassium permanganate solution.

Farther along this road in the premises was the calving shed in which were housed the expectant mothers, due to calve in 45 days. These cows, being separated from the main herd in the attached spacious compound for grazing and exercise, spent a comfortable and easy time and calved in their own clean pens under hygienic conditions.

The farm was lit by electricity, while electric machinery chaffed fodder and ground feeding stuff for the cattle, and electric pumps pumped water to an elevated reservoir, thus enabling water to reach all the drinking troughs, the boiler house and the residential quarters.

Of the total 750 acres of the Rayanakere Estate, about 120 acres were brought under dry and wet cultivation while irrigation was being afforded by a diversion at a higher level of the stream that flowed perennially through the estate.

Rain-fed fodder crops like jola, cowpea and sunflower were grown during the rains and converted into silage in the two silo towers for feeding the cattle during dry weather. The irrigable area of about 50 acres provided excellent green fodder from guinea grass, maize, jola, sunflower and lucerne round the year.

Some of the rich luscious marvalli grass, an indigenous grass, was usually reserved and made into hay to be fed as a supplement with silage during periods of drought. Rhodes grass had been cultivated in some fields close to the premises to provide permanent pasture for the cattle.

Though a greater part of the jungle was cleared to provide extensive pastures, a portion of the jungle was reserved to meet the fuel needs of the farm. The large well, from where the two electric pumps lifted water, was situated near this stream, very close to its diversion.

Although it is said that the Dairy was closed in 1960, records do not trace the exact time and reason for its discontinuation.