Buffalo

[lambada]

Ok all jokes aside. What is the going rate for a damned buffalo? The missus has this idea to buy about 10 buffalo and then breed them and / or sell them at vast profit. I have my doubts but who knows. Anyone had any experience of buffalo? I can just feel the sarchastic comments coming my way!

[Tywais]

Ok all jokes aside.  What is the going rate for a damned buffalo?  The missus has this idea to buy about 10 buffalo and then breed them and / or sell them at vast profit.  I have my doubts but who knows.  Anyone had any experience of buffalo?  I can just feel the sarchastic comments coming my way!

Can't resist. Any odds on which one gets sick first?

[Braccobaldo]

When ladies have these ideas usually mens have problems...but if is the price you wanna know I think it would be around 200k bath for 10 buffalo.

Hoping everything would be fine for you...

[lambada]

When ladies have these ideas usually mens have problems...but if is the price you wanna know I think it would be around 200k bath for 10 buffalo.

Hoping everything would be fine for you...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks. She was quoted and has quoted me 200,000 baht for 10 so she seems to be spot on. About 660,000 baht for 21 Rai of land and about 30,000 baht for bits and pieces. Someone here in Hong Kong told me about 10,000 per buffalo but i suspect that was just a rough guess and I guess you pay different prices for different kinds etc. I am still skeptical but who knows!

[Fried Rice]

When ladies have these ideas usually mens have problems...but if is the price you wanna know I think it would be around 200k bath for 10 buffalo.

Hoping everything would be fine for you...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks. She was quoted and has quoted me 200,000 baht for 10 so she seems to be spot on. About 660,000 baht for 21 Rai of land and about 30,000 baht for bits and pieces. Someone here in Hong Kong told me about 10,000 per buffalo but i suspect that was just a rough guess and I guess you pay different prices for different kinds etc. I am still skeptical but who knows!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think it is a great topic, nothing wrong with buying a buffalo. I am going to be buying a couple buffalos shortly and although I have not actually purchased them according to my GF father they are about 10,000 each. We just want a couple to roam around the farm/

I would be curious to know what someone has paid recently and if there is a price difference male\female or how age affects the price.

[fxm88]

Ok all jokes aside.  What is the going rate for a damned buffalo?  The missus has this idea to buy about 10 buffalo and then breed them and / or sell them at vast profit.  I have my doubts but who knows.  Anyone had any experience of buffalo?  I can just feel the sarchastic comments coming my way!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Anyone remember Defending Your Life?

Lena Foster: What did you finally invest in, Mr. Lambada, do you remember?

Daniel Lambada: [under his breath] Um, uh... buffalos.

Lena Foster: And what happened to the buffalos?

Daniel Lambada: I don't know; I never got a straight answer. All I know is that their teeth fell out.

[Bikkel]

Maybe your wife can get a cheap loan from Mr. Taksinawat to buy cows or buffalo's. How to get it I don't know, you have to ask the local piyun baan.

Nowadays you see those cows and buffalo's everywere.

I asked a local farmer about the white indian cows: a little calf costs about 3000 bath, a grown out mamma cow is worth about 15k (his words). Beware, you need a plot of land to keep them and you have to bring the food to them (grass, hay, rice bran) if they are to put on weight quick. You see a lot of cows grazing at the road side, but then they get to much excersize. Now you see people cutting the grass next to the roadside everywere more and more. Not to mention it takes 2 years to grow out and you have to pay for medicins against parasites and the vet.

[aletta]

The exponential growth of the herds of cows is amazing,although i do wonder who is going to eat all the beef.Locals here never touch it.

[mpdkorat]

The exponential growth of the herds of cows is amazing,although i do wonder who is going to eat all the beef.Locals here never touch it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

But think of the massive return if they all got sick together

[Thaicoon]

Maybe your wife can get a cheap loan from Mr. Taksinawat to buy cows or buffalo's. How to get it I don't know, you have to ask the local piyun baan.

Nowadays you see those cows and buffalo's everywere.

I asked a local farmer about the white indian cows: a little calf costs about 3000 bath, a grown out mamma cow is worth about 15k (his words). Beware, you need a plot of land to keep them and you have to bring the food to them (grass, hay, rice bran) if they are to put on weight quick. You see a lot of cows grazing at the road side, but then they get to much excersize. Now you see people cutting the grass next to the roadside everywere more and more. Not to mention it takes 2 years to grow out  and you have to pay for medicins against parasites and the vet.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

A grown mother cow costs about 11,000 Baht, i have just aquired 2 mother cows, one is pregnant, cost us 14,000 the other 10,000, also bought two buffalo last year, male and female the male was 10,000 and the female was 11,000, as said in this post make sure you have plenty of land, not rice fields, normal land, as when they have planted the rice, you then need grazing land for that few months, i am lucky as my wife and i have both and have plenty of cattle food from the rice. we still have some big stacks from last year, and not long untill the Rice Harvest again..

[fxm88]

The exponential growth of the herds of cows is amazing,although i do wonder who is going to eat all the beef.Locals here never touch it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

1. Raise a lot of cattle.

2. Convert the local population to Islam, Judaism, and/or non-pork eating Christian sects.

3. Profit!!!

[Bikkel]

The exponential growth of the herds of cows is amazing,although i do wonder who is going to eat all the beef. Locals here never touch it.

Yeah, five years ago you would only see 2 buffalo's at most. Now whole herds in my village.

I guess a lot of cattle here are on credit from Mister Taksin. Gigantic as Bangkok is, the majority of the Thai dwell in the rural countryside. To stop the migration to the cities, Taksin artificially raised the price of rice (income for farmers) and gave farmers a low interest loan to invest in lifestock.

In doing so he achieved two things: He finished his first term and second he got re-elected. Both feats nobody achieved before in fifty years since world war II.

I wouldn't stare too blind on the 10k a head. The inlaws were pushing me too to buy lifestock, but I wouldn't touch it. Buy at 3k, sell at 10k leaves you a turnover of 7k, but two years is a long time. A cautious guesstimate suggests that you will spend 3,5k a head on medications and supplemental food. Leaves you with 3,5k a head clean. If you can sell 20 cows a year leaves you with the same montly average income as with unskilled labour (=175 bath/day - 5k bath/month). If you have to hire somebody to take care of the cows your profit erodes away. Don't forget, raising lifestock is off limits for falangs by law!

Leaves you with the option to mobilize the INLAWS. Not so difficult since they regard a falang as an ATM machine with virtual limitless credit. So they were queueing up to get a loan from me, which of course in good Isaan tradition they don't pay back. You can not break some inlaws' bones as a real loan shark would do, can you? So I said I don't charge interest (5% a MONTH at the maffia bank), but you can take care of my rice, ducks, buffalo's, cows, fish, rubber trees,......(fill in the blank) for free, until you either drop dead or pay off the loan. And believe me, the first option is much more likely than the latter.

Another strategy would be to buy (expensive) mother cows and borrow a horny bull from the neighbours. Then you can cash in early and sell off the young calfs as soon as they are big enough. Leaves you with 3k a head.

[fxm88]

I am only familiar with the US beef market -- which is very different from the market in Thailand e.g. feedlots, subsidies -- but I know it's pretty hard to make a living raising cattle. The net profit (income - expense) on a single head of cattle varies from year to year but is generally small. For examples (note these are from different years):

http://www.math.uic.edu/~takata/some_artic...ntibiotics.html

Pollan says that according to Cattle Facts, a market research firm, the return on an animal coming off of a feedlot has averaged about $3 per head over the last 20 years.

http://beef-mag.com/mag/beef_net_return_details/

average net return per cow last year was $64.87. But the average net return among the 20% least profitable operations was -$46.91/cow. Compare that to the $164.03 net return/cow for the 20% most profitable operations. That's a $210.94/cow difference.

http://extension.usu.edu/files/agpubs/sep99nl.htm

The average net return per head was -$21.89. The range in net return varied between a profit of $60.57 and a loss of $123.27.

I don't know if similar statistics are collected and/or made available in Thailand.

[JungleBiker]

I think raising buffalo makes a lot of sense. They are well adpated to local conditions. The profit data for US beef cattle does not apply to Thai buffalo. I think some of you are confusing buffalo and cattle in terms of prices, etc. I think an average price of 20,000 baht per head for buffalo is about right assuming a large sized animal (an animal half the size might be 10,000 baht!). Males are normally bigger than females so prices should be higher if being considered for their meat value. I doubt that any of you have seen an increase in buffalo populations because the buffalo population in Thailand is in decline due to mechanization - buffalo are traditionally raised for pulling ploughs not producing meat. Cattle populations may indeed be increasing indicating that it is profitable to raise cattle. There have been other threads in this forum with lots of interesting information about the beef market in Thailand. Buffalo meat is commonly used to make meat balls as eaten with noodle soup. In order to satisfy the market demand Thailand imports lots of live buffalos from neighbouring countries (e.g. Burma, Cambodia and Laos) for slaughter. It also imports thousands of tons of frozen buffalo meat by the container load from India (vegetarians there raise buffalo for milk but don't eat the meat). It is commonly perceived that buffalo meat is tough, but if raised properly for beef and slaughtered at the right age that is not true. They are now raising buffalo in Australia for high quality beef sold under the brand name "Carabeef" (Buffalo are known as carabao in some countries like Philippines). (I don't have the link at hand but try Google for more information) While buffalo can survive on low quality feed like rice straw, you would be better growing some decent food - forage grasses and legumes. The sizes of buffalo have been declining over the years, part of the reason is inbreeding, therefore you should try to get your bulls from a different source than your cows. By the way, buffalo milk is the raw material for mozzarella cheese, but the breed of buffalo in Thailand is not the dairy type. For more interesting information on buffalo go here. http://ww2.netnitco.net/users/djligda/waterbuf.htm

[lambada]

Thanks for all the responses. We are planning on the land first. I shall process slowly - always do. It sounds like it might be an interesting way of making a bit of pocket money and entertaining / employing the in-laws.