Jason Fuoco caresses a two-day old water buffalo calf while her mother stands guard on July 22, 2017 in Saint-Lin Laurentides, Quebec.
When the transport trailer door swung open and the first water buffalo appeared, three feet wide and weighing 2,000 pounds, Jason Fuoco admits he felt a sudden jolt of fear. Then came another . . . and another . . . and another. Was he seriously going to get down on his knees beside these massive beasts to milk them? “I was really scared,” he says.
When the aspiring cheesemaker decided to make mozzarella the authentic way, with water buffalo milk, the first step was acquiring a herd. He started by buying six heifers from a farm on Vancouver Island, figuring he would ease into buffalo production.
However, a few months after the first animals arrived, another producer called Fuoco to say he had 21 pregnant water buffalos available for purchase. Was he interested?
Fuoco found himself diving in. With the last of the animals unloaded, the Quebec farmer had more than quadrupled the size of his herd overnight. He wondered what he’d gotten himself into. As it turned out, he’d have plenty of late nights in the barn to mull that question over as he tried to coax milk from the stubborn animals.
The lure of water buffalo
In many ways, water buffalo offer an attractive alternative to a traditional dairy operation. You don’t need to buy quota. You can charge a premium for the milk. And with few producers currently raising water buffalo in Canada, there’s little in the way of competition.
In other parts of the world, water buffalos are big business. The rich, mild milk is used to make everything from Italian mozzarella to Indian paneer cheese and deliciously creamy yogurt and gelato. Meanwhile, the meat is rich in iron but contains less fat and cholesterol than beef.
According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, there are nearly 175,000 water buffalo raised worldwide.
Big animals, big challenges
The theory, says Fuoco, seemed beautifully simple: put the milkers on the buffalos, collect the milk, make cheese. Reality proved a little different. As he quickly discovered, water buffalos are very skittish around strangers, and if they don’t feel comfortable, they won’t let down their milk.
Of the 15 buffalos that gave birth, Fuoco was only able to milk five. Even so, he was regularly up until two in the morning, because it took him an hour to calm down a single buffalo enough to put the milkers on, and more often than not, the precious liquid he collected ended up on the floor. “It was just hell,” he recalls. “I was ready to sell the buffalos the first week.” Every newbie water buffalo producer has similar stories to share.
Eventually, Fuoco learned the key was creating a calm, unrushed environment and following a predictable routine, where the buffalos are milked at the same time each day, by the same people, in the same order. Some like a little head scratching. Others need some sweet talking before you get down to business. “Each buffalo has its own character,” he says.
Once you’ve mastered that, you can expect roughly 10 litres a day per animal. That’s far less than dairy cows, which typically produce about 30 litres a day, but water buffalo milk has some unique qualities. For example, it contains more protein and calcium than cow’s milk. Meanwhile, because water buffalo milk naturally contains enzymes that break down lactose, many people who are sensitive to cow’s milk find they can digest it.
Part dog, part bulldozer
Another big difference between water buffalos and cows is brute strength. “There’s only two things that will slow buffalo down, and that’s cement and steel,” says Martin Littkemann, an
“There’re only two things that will slow buffalo down, and that’s cement and steel,” says Martin Littkemann, an Ontario producer who has been raising the animals for more than a decade
Ontario producer who has been raising the animals for more than a decade.
A visitor to Littkemann’s farm told him they used to plow the fields in Greece with horses. If the horses had a hard time, they’d switch to oxen. And if the oxen struggled, they’d bring in the water buffalo. “I call them bulldozers on four legs,” says Fuoco. Add intelligence and plenty of curiosity to the mix, and you’ve got a recipe for headaches.
Fuoco was inspired to reinforce his fence after finding it demolished by his buffalo. Apparently, the animals had used their horns to lever the wire from the fenceposts one night, pulling off 2,500 feet of it. — Then they rolled it all into a giant ball and were happily playing with it in the pasture when Fuoco discovered them the next morning.
Today, a heavy-duty fence encloses that pasture and 12 feet beyond that, Fuoco has installed another fence just to be sure. “I built a fortress,” he says.
On Vancouver Island, Sandra McClintock has covered every accessible wood surface in her converted cow-milking parlour with tin or protected it with electric fencing. “They’re able to do things like pry boards off of gates or buildings. They enjoy poking holes in plywood. They can undo gate clips,” says McClintock, who has been in the water buffalo business for nearly 10 years.
William F Jorgensen
Sandra McClintock, pictured here on her Vancouver Island farm with her parents and her daughter, has been in the water buffalo business for nearly 10 years. “I like to say I have a herd of pets,” she says. Photo: Bill Jorgensen
At the same time, water buffalo can be extremely docile and affectionate, following you around the field and rolling over so you can scratch their tummy. “I like to say I have a herd of pets,” says McClintock.
She recalls coming into the barn one morning to discover that one buffalo managed to get her leg firmly entangled in the curled horn of a companion while they slept in a communal pile. Unable to separate them, McClintock summoned the vet. While he sawed off the offending horn, the two buffalos just sat there, completely unconcerned. Once they were freed, they ambled off for breakfast. “I couldn't believe it,” says McClintock. “If it was a cow or something, they’d go absolutely bananas.”
Getting started or going bigger
Whether you’re establishing your herd or adding to it, source your animals carefully. “Ranched” buffalos can be a bit wild, says Littkemann — and when you’re talking about 2,000-pound animals, that’s a problem.
Finding a supplier in Canada will avoid a lot of hassle, since importing female buffalos isn’t a simple undertaking. Meanwhile, bulls can’t be imported at all, due to the risk of BSE, so you’re limited to importing semen. Keep in mind that artificial insemination can be tricky, because it’s often hard to judge when females go into heat.
Handling the herd
From an operational point of view, a dairy buffalo farm runs essentially like a Holstein farm: graze the buffalos in the summer, provide feed in the winter and milk them twice a day. Surplus males can be sold for meat.
Water buffalos eat less than a cow, says McClintock, but still put on weight easily. They’re also very hardy. Since she established her herd in 2010, vet visits have been rare: her buffalos have had no foot issues, no calving issues and very few health issues.
However, they do need protection from temperature extremes. In most parts of the country, insulated barns are a must to avoid frostbite. In the summer, buffalos need shade. They also love to wallow — and if you don’t provide the venue, they’ll do their best to create one.
Unfortunately, what’s fun for the buffalo isn’t nearly as much fun for the farmer. “They will literally be covered in mud from head to toe, and it’s really hard to clean them when it’s milking time,” McClintock explains.
Keep in mind that buffalo move differently, kick differently and behave differently than cows do. “Everything that you know about dairy cattle, you kind of want to forget,” says Littkemann. If possible, he suggests spending time learning from another producer before you acquire your own animals.
When it comes to herding water buffalos, arm yourself with plenty of patience. “They’ll go anywhere you want them to, as long as they kind of think it’s their idea. So you can’t force them,” says Littkemann. “You kind of just coax them and point them in the right direction and just wait.”
And be aware that buffalos won’t hesitate to attack anything that threatens them or their calves. “I’ve seen them squash a raccoon trying to get across the yard,” says Littkemann. “If they’re staring you down, you’re in trouble.”
Sales and marketing
Although operating outside the quota system offers several advantages, it also comes with many challenges. A big one is not having any marketing support. There’s no tanker truck pulling up to your farm every other morning and no marketing board ensuring you receive a predictable income each month. On top of that, you have to look after all the logistics of delivery, invoicing and payment collection.
Some producers, like Fuoco, process their own milk. Others, like McClintock and Littkemann, sell their milk to cheesemakers. In fact, Littkemann started getting calls from would-be buyers even before his water buffalos arrived. Until that point, Ontario cheesemakers had no local source of fresh water buffalo milk, so they jumped on the opportunity when it arose.
Littkemann intended to focus on farming, but ten years back, he made a mistake. “I sold somebody a piece of cheese,” he explains. “Then it just kind of went from there. They just kept coming to our door.” So he opened an on-farm store that currently sells buffalo brie, milk, butter tarts and gelato, as well as meat.
According to McClintock, the big challenge is trying to build a market at the same pace you’re building your herd — especially given that water buffalo can continue calving and producing milk until the age of 20. “You reach that point where you’re calving 40 or so a year and your herd starts to build really, really quickly,” she says.
Because buffalo milk and meat are niche products, any shortages or surpluses can seriously impact prices, and it’s easy to exhaust local markets. When a third buffalo milk provider started up in the area, McClintock ended up with a surplus of milk, so she added yogurt production.
However, because most Canadians aren’t familiar with water buffalo milk, expanding your market requires educating consumers and building awareness. “My dad has spent a lot of time handing out samples,” she says.
Not a job for newbies
Littkemann, Fuoco and McClintock have all proved that water buffalo farming can be profitable in Canada. McClintock now has 100 animals and distributes her yogurt across B.C. through Whole Foods. Meanwhile, Littkemann’s operation boasts more than 500 buffalos and employs 11 people to help run the farm and the store. And Fuoco doesn’t have enough milk to keep up with demand for his delicate “bufarella” and his eponymously named “Fuoco cheese,” a creamy, ripened cheese with a soft rind that has won national and international awards.
But when they tell you raising water buffalos isn’t easy, it’s not because they’re trying to protect their own turf.
Quite simply, Littkemann says, water buffalos aren’t a starter animal. He regularly gets calls from naive hobby farmers who think they’d like to raise one or two. “You can’t really dabble in this,” he says. “If you want to be in it, you’ve got to be in seriously.”
His advice for less experienced producers? “If you want to milk something, get a goat,” he suggests.
— Julie Stauffer and Josh Martin