Kusanar
Loving the herd life
That should be a pretty beefy boy!
An Introduction to Buffaloes
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Bruce
Herd Master
I expect an alpaca could carry a light load, like your rain poncho and lunch 
Baymule
Herd Master
He is!
Our Steer is Here!
Our steer was delivered today. He was born last October, 2019. He has a slaughter date in March 2021. He is half Charolais and half Hereford. We named him Goldie.
www.backyardherds.com
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River Buffaloes
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Here you can buy a nice cow calf pair that can provide more than enough milk for your family and extra for sale in 400$. Buffaloes don't even start at that price.
Baymule
Herd Master
What prices do buffalo sell for?
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River Buffaloes
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A good quality buffalo will cost upwards of 800$, but price varies according to season. You see buffaloes have a thing called 'calving season', that is the high monsoon season between July to September. 75% of the Buffaloes will calve during this season.
This causes an interesting problem, many rural parts of the country is flooded and people want to sell their buffaloes. Regions which do not face flooding problems are trying to plant the rice crop for which they need money so they want to sell their buffaloes as well. A significant part of the land is covered with either rice crop or flood so the land available for grazing is limited and the fodder the farmers store for their buffaloes gets either depleted or spoilt due to rain.
With the retreat of monsoon the number of Buffaloes calving also drops and the number of people who were desperate to sell their buffaloes also start to decrease. After the harvest of rice a good amount of land is planted with fodder crops like oat, Egyptian clover, Lucerne etc and in January there's a festival in which milk is required so more people start looking for buffaloes, but less buffaloes are for sale so the price of Buffaloes become high. During the hight of the summer in April-May there's barely any newly freshend Buffalo, but the demand of buffalo is very high because in intense summer people want to eat yoghurt and drinks made from yoghurt.
Price of cows also fall during the monsoon season, but they calve year round. The price of buffalo I told is when their price is lowest.
This causes an interesting problem, many rural parts of the country is flooded and people want to sell their buffaloes. Regions which do not face flooding problems are trying to plant the rice crop for which they need money so they want to sell their buffaloes as well. A significant part of the land is covered with either rice crop or flood so the land available for grazing is limited and the fodder the farmers store for their buffaloes gets either depleted or spoilt due to rain.
With the retreat of monsoon the number of Buffaloes calving also drops and the number of people who were desperate to sell their buffaloes also start to decrease. After the harvest of rice a good amount of land is planted with fodder crops like oat, Egyptian clover, Lucerne etc and in January there's a festival in which milk is required so more people start looking for buffaloes, but less buffaloes are for sale so the price of Buffaloes become high. During the hight of the summer in April-May there's barely any newly freshend Buffalo, but the demand of buffalo is very high because in intense summer people want to eat yoghurt and drinks made from yoghurt.
Price of cows also fall during the monsoon season, but they calve year round. The price of buffalo I told is when their price is lowest.
Baymule
Herd Master
Do the buffaloes live outside in all seasons or do they have a barn/shelter? Some people leave their cattle out all year, some provide a barn or 3 sided shelter. I guess I'm a softie, I want all my animals to have access to shelter if they want it. Even though we have lots of trees and shade, the horses love their barn and will just stand around in it, the sheep love their barn and in the heat of the day, will BAA BAA BAA at me to go back to their cool barn. LOL My feeder pigs have shelter, now being used by the steer.
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River Buffaloes
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It really depends, it depends on seasons, it depends on the time of the day and also the place. There's a buffalo breed called Banni, it's kept in Gujarat by herders. The buffalo is kept in an enclosure under trees during the day and they graze in the saltpans during the night.
In our place they are left in the open during the night in summer and are sheltered during the day and vice versa in the winters. They also are taken out to pasture at dawn and late afternoon. During the monsoon season they remain outside all day because the weather though uncomfortable, is not deadly, but we also keep them out because of the fear of floods.
I vividly remember the massive flood of 2008, I was at my maternal grandmother's place and I was sleeping and I woke up to my mom's screams of "run Babul run, just wake up and run" as I woke up and it was dark and I hurriedly tried to get on my feet still half asleep and feet went into cold water.
Later on learnt that the river Kosi has changed it's course.
Baymule
Herd Master
Wow! I have never had to face anything like that! My sister lives close to a river and I have begged her to move, but she stays. In Hurricane Harvey a couple of years ago, she took 7 feet of water in her house. She, her husband and their dogs were rescued by boat from their 2nd story window. Her house suffered a lot of damage, she got it all redone, but she is not in good health, her husband died this year and I wish she would move to high ground.
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River Buffaloes
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Now floods are nothing new for Bihar, our State is the most flood-prone State of India.
In 2008 though I was still a child, I was stuck on an embankment with other men. It was the single worst experience that I went through. They used to drop some dry food and water bottles from the helicopter. But I remember being always hungry and always cold. My mother, my grandmother and my wee sister were rescued by helicopters. Women cannot live in the open, but I refused to abandon the Buffaloes so I stayed as did many other men.
In 2008 though I was still a child, I was stuck on an embankment with other men. It was the single worst experience that I went through. They used to drop some dry food and water bottles from the helicopter. But I remember being always hungry and always cold. My mother, my grandmother and my wee sister were rescued by helicopters. Women cannot live in the open, but I refused to abandon the Buffaloes so I stayed as did many other men.
