Water Buffalo

[Pond Life]

Im planning to buy a Water Buffalo in a couple of months time.

If anyone has any personal hands on experience,

I would be very glad to hear their advice & views.

What shots if any they got from the vet, any feed supplements, did they damage trees etc.

I'm looking at getting just one female, about 1 yr old, anyone know the going price (10,000 ?) ?.

I'd like to see some photo's of what a female looks like at 1 year old.

Horn size & teeth especially.

To save me from getting bullshitted.

Thanks

[bina]

buy pregnant or u are wasting money; if she is pregnant, u know she can get pregnant again, rule number one.

we had some ancient posts about this, years ago... but basically any animal u buy, look at hooves (no rot, broken, lame, sores whatever); look at her rump under her tail, shit is normal buffalo shit and not green or runny (worms, disease); see if she is standing on her own in a corner, sleepy more then a buffalo normally is ; if she has a calf see if it suckles and she doesnt have teat problems (buffalos i think shouldnt have problems since no one milks them); but see that she takes care of her calf.a bad mother is always a bad mother and calves from bad mothers iwll usually be bad mothers. buffalo are not horses and teeth are not the issue. its worms, other bovine diseases like brucellosis etc that are problematic.

this is just basic animal stock check list: for buffalo specific, take wife or close friend along, go shopping , watch an auction or so, ask around, never buy poor stock and think its a cheap buy and u can 'fix' the animal. no matter how sorry the animal, dont feel sorry, move on. take only stock that has healthy looking eyes, flesh on the bones, moves with the others in the herd, dont go for super aggressive animals either as u will have a head ache on your hands. dont trust anyone who tells u that she calved if u dont see a calf with her. dont take a virgin unless u have experience with breeding as u will have to find a stud, and start with an unknown (if it doesnt take, who is at fault the stud or the female)...

make sure u see her chewing cud at some point. a buffalo,cow or goat that doesnt chew cud afte watching for a long time, has a health problem. again more for goats i think, who are sensitive.

find out if there werent any epidemics of lost /born dead/aborted calves. sure signs of illness among the buffalos. bad illnesses: brucellosis, chlymidia etc. then dont take from that herd.

if someone is selling fast, find out why? need money, or animal is sick.

did i forget soemthing?

bina

israel

[Pond Life]

Thanks for the health check tips, a few in there I hadn't thought of.

I understand your advice about getting a pregnant female, but I have a different Idea.

I have 5 rai of land, only about 2 rai of it available for grazing, in an orchard.

Rainy season there will be plenty to eat, but we get a 6 month dry season.

My guestimate is that this is only enough for 1 Buff.

My plan is to get a young female & see how we get on with her.

If all goes well & there seems to be enough feed for a calf to, then we'll see about getting her pregnant.

If she doesnt take, no problem, I'm not wanting to get in the breeding business.

My main reasons for wanting a Buff is to reduce the amount of weed whacking we do,

& to produce shit for the rice field & garden,

We currently spend about 2,000 B a year + a lot of hassle, to get cow shit from 10 km away.

A few extra questions I'd like to throw out to the audience,

If I dig a wallow for her in a good place, will she stick to it or is she likely to dig others ?

Is she likely to damage tree's in the orchard ? (mostly Mango & Lamyai).

Do Buffalo's respect electric fencing ?

Thanks

[David2up]

Buff shit does Not make for good fertilizer. Unlike a cow, they do not digest their intake very well, so what you get is wet/runny pile of weeds, in place of a nice dry cow paddy. While we do miss the two we use to have, for they were in their own way fun to have around, we do not miss all the piles of weeds.

Cheers

Thanks for the health check tips, a few in there I hadn't thought of.

I understand your advice about getting a pregnant female, but I have a different Idea.

I have 5 rai of land, only about 2 rai of it available for grazing, in an orchard.

Rainy season there will be plenty to eat, but we get a 6 month dry season.

My guestimate is that this is only enough for 1 Buff.

My plan is to get a young female & see how we get on with her.

If all goes well & there seems to be enough feed for a calf to, then we'll see about getting her pregnant.

If she doesnt take, no problem, I'm not wanting to get in the breeding business.

My main reasons for wanting a Buff is to reduce the amount of weed whacking we do,

& to produce shit for the rice field & garden,

We currently spend about 2,000 B a year + a lot of hassle, to get cow shit from 10 km away.

A few extra questions I'd like to throw out to the audience,

If I dig a wallow for her in a good place, will she stick to it or is she likely to dig others ?

Is she likely to damage tree's in the orchard ? (mostly Mango & Lamyai).

Do Buffalo's respect electric fencing ?

Thanks

[Pond Life]

That sounds odd, the Buff shit we've bought in the past looked a lot like cow shit.

& it definately came out the back end of a Buffalo.

Also one of the advantages of Buff is supposed to be that they can digest rough forage better than cows.

Are you sure yours were not sick.

[David2up]

Hi Pond life,

No ours were not sick. In fact the local vet is a close friend of ours and comes by frequently...

Buffs are not selective eaters, where as cows are. This means then that what a Buff takes in, a Buff puts out the other end; a lot of weeds in their manure!

Also their manure is more runny and does not usually dry as well. And if you want to collect it and then distribute somewhere else - good luck on trying to do so. Especially during the rainy season.

Then of course, there are always the nice big holes in the ground they like to dig out and let fill with rain water, which then become excellent breeding ground(s) for mosquitos.

Hey - we really enjoyed our two that then became three what with their off spring and in the beginning our plans were similar to yours, but after three years, we changed over to cows - then got a bit wiser about the utilization of time and space and got rid of them also. We now have about 100 Lemon trees in their place. Some go to the local market for sale. Some go into making excellent laundry and bath soap. Some into making fertilizer. And of course - some also find their way into a gin and tonic.

Cheers from Chaing Khong

David