Water Buffalo In The USA

Unique, niche market animals, water buffalo in the USA are starting to grow in popularity. Should you get started raising water buffalo?

By Jennifer Nemec
Updated on August 23, 2022
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by AdobeStock/Ali

Unique, niche market animals, water buffalo in the USA are starting to grow in popularity. Should you get started raising water buffalo?

For most people, a mention of water buffalo conjures images of the African savannah, perhaps accompanied by a calm voice, “Watch now, as Jim flings himself from the helicopter into the midst of the herd …” Those ferocious-looking animals from the Wild Kingdom are a completely different species than the docile, easily led animals that have come to grace water buffalo farms in the United States.

“They respond just like a dairy cow,” says Kent Underwood, self-proclaimed “Water Buffalo Guru” and former manager of Vermont Water Buffalo. “They’re more of a flight animal than a fight. A lot of people get them mixed up with the Cape Buffalo in Africa, but they really are more of a companion animal.”

At home in many lands

The buffalo of the world are classified into two main groups, the Asian and the African. The African species, the Cape Buffalo (Syncerus caffer) mentioned above, has huge horns that join in the center to look like parted hair. For clarity, what we tend to call the North American Buffalo are really Bison, which are more closely related to cattle than to Asian water buffalo. The wild Asian water buffalo is an endangered species, from which the domesticated water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) was tamed around 5,000 years ago.

a herd of black water buffalo grazing in a field in the countryside
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