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The Water Buffalo as a Dairy Animal

Canton Christian College, Canton, China

ABSTRACT

History of the Water Buffalo

The original home of the water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis Lyd.), is not definitely known. However, credit for the first domestication of this class of bovine is probably due to the people of northern India where today the undomesticated form still exists, although in small numbers.

At an early date, the water buffalo was domesticated and had reached what is now southern and southwestern China. Chinese literature refers to it as having been used as a draft animal and as a source of beef for centuries by the farmers of southern China.

Distribution Today

Today the water buffalo, as a domesticated animal, is common in practically all of India, Siam, Straits Settlements, Indo-China, China as far north as two hundred miles north of Shanghai, the Philippine and Hawaiian Islands, and other islands of the Pacific Ocean. From the Hawaiian group, they jumped across to Brazil in South America.