An Introduction to Buffaloes

[Baymule]

That sounds like a pretty good system.

 

[River Buffaloes]

That sounds like a pretty good system.

Yes, that's why it's so cheap here. It takes 0-3 dollars to get your cow / Buffalo bred

 

[Baymule]

$0-$3 to breed a Buffalo or a cow! Not here!

 

[Kusanar]

And then there is one particular Buffalo who is a first time moma and is pregnant for the second time, Her calf was 10 months old and she had still not weaned her.

Horses are normally weaned around 4-6 months by people, if mama has the choice you never know how long they will nurse for. I once saw a picture of a mustang mare with her 2 year old (or maybe a bit older) daughter nursing while HER daughter nursed from her. 3 generations in 1 picture.

 

[River Buffaloes]

Horses are normally weaned around 4-6 months by people, if mama has the choice you never know how long they will nurse for. I once saw a picture of a mustang mare with her 2 year old (or maybe a bit older) daughter nursing while HER daughter nursed from her. 3 generations in 1 picture.

One of my buffaloes who will be four in November and a mom herself and pregnant for the second time has not given up on the idea of nursing, but her mon wants nothing of that.

 

[Kusanar]

One of my buffaloes who will be four in November and a mom herself and pregnant for the second time has not given up on the idea of nursing, but her mon wants nothing of that.

That's apparently an issue with milk cattle as well, they will try to nurse off of each other. They put plastic rings in their noses that have spikes on them to make the other cows kick them off when they try to nurse.

 

[River Buffaloes]

That's apparently an issue with milk cattle as well, they will try to nurse off of each other. They put plastic rings in their noses that have spikes on them to make the other cows kick them off when they try to nurse.

Buffaloes are generally very good at weaning their calves. I had a buffalo who only nursed her calf for like a month or two. After that never allowed the calf to nurse and she gave a lot of milk. My problem was that I had to bottle feed her calves and that was a chore. Buffaloes also don't allow their calves to nurse whenever they please. They only allow them when they are feeling the pressure of milk. So we let the calves graze with their mamas, but we seperate them or become vigil during in late noon.

I have never seen a buffalo nursing someone else's calf. I have heard about it, but I have never seen one doing so and I have seen thousands of Buffaloes, not only because we trade in buffaloes, but also because many many people here keep them. So buffaloes drinking eachother's milk has never been an issue. The buffalo I mentioned was weaned by her mom herself at six months, mom never allowed her to nurse after that.

Here I am sharing links to two videos in which big buffalo calves are nursing of their moms. Remember these are exceptions and the moms are really old and their value is only because of their pedigree or genetics. One is of India and one is from Pakistan

 

[River Buffaloes]

Story of the most successful Water Buffaloes farm in Maine.

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[River Buffaloes]

Another major mistake folks make with buffaloes is that they put the buffalo calves on calf milk replacer. Yeah because buffaloes milk is too expensive for the calves to drink, which I can understand. However the calf milk replacer does not have the adequate nutrition. The best options are buffalo milk replacer and the lamb milk replacer. Goat milk replacer may also work fine, but if you must put them on calf milk replacer then you should add supplements for adequate development of the buffalo calves.

 

[Baymule]

What would you supplement with? You might add to NOT use a soy based milk replacer. We raised 2 bottle lambs last winter and I bought a soy based milk replacer, Dumor. It stunk, they didn't like it and it gave them runny poop. We were raising them on a formula of
1 gallon whole cow milk
1 can evaporated milk
1 cup cultured buttermilk

Pour out 2 cups milk, add evaporated milk and buttermilk.

That formula worked great. I had the milk replacer as back up. We had record breaking cold, ice and snow, temperatures to -6F and the grocery store shelves were bare. I had the neighborhood on milk patrol, as milk was hard to find and there were limits on how much you could buy. I wound up using the milk replacer to stretch out the formula. But I certainly learned my leesson on milk replacer!