Courtesy Sue Weaver
UseWater American buffalo are to Asia as bison were to the American knit Indians . For millennia , water Old World buffalo leave draught power , milk , heart and soul , hides , horn , and fuel in part of Asia where no other reference existed . They are still an integral part of rural life sentence in Vietnam , Cambodia , and the rest of Southeast Asia .
It ’s estimated that Riverine water buffalo bestow up to 15 percent of the world ’s Milk River supply . Buffalo milk is mellow in milk solids and averages eight pct butterfat , making it an ideal medium for piddle soft cheeses , butter , and yogurt . Most of the ghee ( elucidate butter ) sell in India is made from buffalo milk , as is much of the gourmet mozzarella cheese craft in Italian dairies ( the United States imports 90,000 pounding of mozzarella di bufala every year ) .
thin , tasty , body of water buffalo meat contains less than one - twenty-five percent the amount of fatty tissue and half of the cholesterol of gripe . ready , it closely resemble ( and appreciation like ) lightly marbled beef . rancher in Trinidad developed a gripe - type pee buffalo called the buffalypso that is now available in the United States .
And , due to their intelligence and good-tempered nature , water buffalo are easy trained to ride or as act oxen .
HistoryWater buffalo ( Bubalus bubalus ) were domesticate in the Indus Valley of India and Pakistan at least 5000 eld ago . Their ascendent , the critically endangered Asian Wild Water Buffalo ( Bubalus arnee ) , still survives in limited numbers in India , Nepal , Bhutan , and Thailand .
betimes on the domesticated water buffalo separated into two type : swamp buffalo ( the exercise water system buffalo consort with China and Southeast Asia ) and river or riverine buffalo ( further developed in India and Pakistan for Milk River production ) .
urine buffalo get in North Africa and the Near East as early as 600 A.D. They fall to Europe with Crusaders returning from the Middle East . They were put in to Australia in the other eighteenth century , where escapee rapidly naturalized and where enceinte savage populations still exist .
The University of Florida , in an attempt to develop an constitutive approach to aquatic weed control , import five buffalo in 1975 . Their success led to an article in the December 1976 issue of Smithsonian cartridge clip that in turn inspired Lake Charles , Louisiana businessman , A.P. Leonard , to spell 103 riverine buffalo from Trinidad and 78 swampland buffalo from Guam .
data-based herds were at last established at the University of Florida and at Berry College in Georgia . The American Water Buffalo Association was form in 1986 and there are now an estimated 4000 piddle buffalo in the United States .
ConformationSwamp buffalo are the live tractors of China and Southeast Asia . Most are brownish - gray with light - colored leg and a span of light - colored chevron markings on their chests .
They are massively built with strong physical structure and short leg terminate in large hooves that enable them to navigate Asia ’s flooded padi rice fields with ease . Their horn are triangular in cross - department and swing back from their frontal bone in a wide crescent that can easily measure five or more feet from tip to tip .
Riverine buffalo are combination draft and dairy animals . They can be dark-brown but are commonly mordant ; white-hot markings on the tail switch , legs , or forehead are coarse . They are taller , more angulate , and have longer leg than swamp buffalo . Their French horn sweep back , then up and in , frequently finish in spiral curls .
While swampland buffalo have 48 chromosomes and riverine buffalo 50 chromosomes , their genetic cloth is very exchangeable and the two type are inter - prolific . Many North American water buffalo are mixtures of the two , as are the meaty buffalypso of Trinidad . They can not , however , crossbreed with genus Bos species such as domesticated cattle , yaks , or bison , all of which have 60 chromosome , nor are they tight refer to bison ( erroneously called American buffalo ) or the Cape American bison of Africa .
Depending on type and breed , adult buffalo average 46 - 60 in tall ( measured at the withers ) and count between 800 and 2000 pounds .
They have one - tenth the phone number of sweat gland of domesticated cattle and correspondingly sparse hair coat . They ’re behave with all the hair follicle they ’ll ever have , so sura have relatively lush coats while adults have very short hair .
Special Care / NotesWater buffalo are not exotics and thus not govern as such . Fences that withstand domestic cattle work for piss buffalo . They thrive on marginal pasture with rocky browsing and consume a fraction of the feed required to leaven cattle .
calve problems are virtually nil ; cows display strong mothering instinct . They ’re levelheaded , long - be , and cows frequently calve into their 20 ’s .
With few exceptions , water buffalo are uncommonly easygoing and they thrive on attention . It ’s gentle to develop buffalo to ride .
Swamp buffalo are perfectly adapted to our southeast country . With winter protection , riverine buffalo can fly high anywhere in the United States . In hot , humid climate they prefer to wallow in water to cool down down but hose down them with cool pee twice a day is normally sufficient .
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