If you are a regular visitor to Thailand, even if you have never seen one, you are probably familiar with the ubiquitous water buffalo. You may have well even contributed to buying a few in your time. A staple of the Thai agriculture scene and an integral part of rural village life, the buffalo has been a major part of Thai village life for centuries.

In rural areas of Thailand, buffaloes are considered a companion and friend especially to children who grow up with the family’s buffalo and often spend all day tending to and playing with their buffalo. Since only a small number of buffaloes are raised per village household, farmers take care of each animal individually and they call each of their buffalo by name. And as with farm life all over the world, young Thai men often discover the wonders of buffalo-companionship as they mature from boy to man.

It’s no wonder then that those who decide to seek fame and fortune in larger cities like Pattaya find a different, but alarmingly similar type of cash cow among the farang population. Those who wonder how a straight bar boy can manage to ‘perform’ need only consider how little difference there is between a sexpat’s rear-end and that of the boy’s family’s buffalo. Though it probably isn’t quite as tight.

The affection bar boys have for their farang are undoubtedly an extension of their general good will and feelings toward their buffalo back home. Like the buffalo, many of Pattaya’s sexpats have big feet and walk with slow plodding steps. And the bellowing and snorting noises a buffalo makes is not all that different from the strange sounds made by sexpats too. Both tend to have oversized bellies, enjoy spending the day wallowing in and near water, and both, to a Thai, are seen as being stupid and often stubborn. Throw in the fact that sexpats too can be trained to provide a living for the boy’s entire family and you can easily see why bar boys are so happy to add another daft animal to their extended family.

But as important as the sexpat version of buffalo are to the Thai economy, the bovine version has a much longer historical presence. Since it always pays to know who your competition is, here is everything you never wanted to know about water buffalo in Thailand:

The swamp buffalo is the indigenous buffalo in Thailand. The Department of Animal Science at Kasetsart University introduced river buffalo into Thailand in the late 1950s.

Most of the swamp buffalo in Thailand are completely black in color. Only a few of them are white in color. The white buffalo are not albino; the color is due to genetic defects.

The Thai swamp buffalo can be used to work up to 14 years old without problems.

On average, the buffalo works 5 hours a day, 122 days a year.

With the help of water buffaloes, farmers can plant up to five times more crops than they could by hand.

It usually takes four to six weeks for a full training including threading a rope through the buffalo’s nose to guide the animal, plowing training, ability to make turns.

An adult water buffalo produces 6 tons of manure per year, which is used to fertilize farm land.

Water buffaloes’ nutrient-rich milk is a staple in the rural Thai diet.
Female buffalo can and do have healthy offspring even when older than 20 years.

Male buffalo are often castrated to increase their size and value as draft animals.

Buffalo contribute more red meat than cattle to the Thai market (About 400,000 buffaloes are slaughtered for meat each year.)

A buffalo carcass will contain 40.8 to 46.4% usable meat based on live weight. (And now you know why steak is so cheap at Sizzler.)

On average, mature male buffalo weigh 450 – 600 kg in weight. The mature females weigh 350 – 450 kg.

Buffalo fought alongside their owners on the battlefields during the Ayudhaya period.

A large male buffalo costs about 25,000 baht in Northern Thailand where they are used in agriculture. The same sized buffalo used for competitive sport can cost as much as 100,000 baht.

HRH King Bhumibol started the Buffalo Bank in the mid-1970s with a donation of 200 animals. Rather than purchase an animal, farmers can rent a buffalo for three years before it has to be given back to the bank to be reissued to another farmer.

Thailand owned the largest buffalo population and was the buffalo champion of South East Asian countries in the 1970s. Since then the population has decreased by 26% and some experts predict that there will be no more buffalo used in Thailand for agriculture purposes within 10 years. There is no predicted expiration date for the custom of buffalo purchased by farang for their Thai boyfriend.

Related Posts You Might Enjoy: