Water Buffalo

If you've read any of this blog then you'll know that DH Matt and I are aiming at a permaculture agroforestry project. Since our crop (trees) takes 20 years per cycle we need to pasture animals under the trees, both for income (breeding, meat, milk) and to keep brush down. We've looked for years at goats, which most small farms in this area have. We've looked at milk goats, meat goats, and hair goats for yarn production. We've looked at Nubian goats, LaMancha goats, and Oberhasli goats. Goats make sense for this climate and hilly terrain, which is why most people here have them. Still neither DH Matt not I can warm to goats. Matt doesn't like that they are prey animals to the prolific mountain lion population here. Their eyes creep me out (sigh).

We've considered sheep, but as this is goat country the few people here who raise sheep have problems finding a shearer...hair sheep have hair instead of wool, but they are basically meat animals and we want dairy animals. They are also more preyed upon by the local wildlife than are goats. Sheep are also difficult to milk. Cattle don't work on our land; they are grazers and we need less finicky browsers. Cattle also vastly prefer flat ground.

The January/February 2010 issue of Hobby Farms ran an article on water buffalo. We read about the Riverine (dairy) water buffalo, and it just made so much sense. They are large enough to deter predators, mild, friendly and smart, produce rich milk, and are browsers who need no grain supplement. The are "people lovers", very social critters who will hang around people for the company. Their milk makes delicious cheese and butter and they can be milked with minor adaptations to standard small farm milking equipment. They are resistant to disease and to parasites (the same reason we chose ducks instead of chickens). They can be acquired for the same price as a dairy cow, about $500, and they are already being raised in a similar Mediterranean climate to ours in Italy. Water buffalo are "easy keepers", needing only hay or straw and a salt lick.

We are researching tree fodder (another project) and dietary needs of water buffalo right now, as well as trying to find a pair of heiffers. We hope to use AI (artificial insemination) instead of a bull, both because we don't want our WB to inbreed and because we want to import Italian bull sperm from the dairy herds to improve our stock. My husband has volunteered me for the AI project...I told him that I thought that this was something best hired out.