A water buffalo kept for farm work, milk and other uses. It cools itself in water or mud during hot weather.
It has large horns and sparse hair. Domestic types differ: some have outward-sweeping horns, while others have tightly curved horns.
Water buffalo cool themselves by wallowing and using shade. In a 2021 study in Cuba, researchers followed the same nine young female buffaloes in a conventional grass pasture and a pasture planted with forage trees. Across four combinations of pasture system and heat level, they recorded behavior every ten minutes from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. over 12 days.
Under intense heat, the buffaloes spent an average of 2.35 hours wallowing in the conventional pasture system and 1.18 hours in the system with forage trees. They spent 1.71 and 2.62 hours in tree shade, respectively, with longer shade use in the system with forage trees.
Feeding time was also longer in the forage-tree system. Wallowing and shade together took 4.06 hours in the conventional pasture and 3.81 hours in the forage-tree system under intense heat. The buffaloes still used the wallow when trees were available, combining water and shade as cooling options.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
ICAR-NBAGR’s Breed Watchlist 2022 classifies the Chilika and Toda native water-buffalo breeds in India as “Vulnerable.” The assessment uses breed-wise data based on India’s 20th Livestock Census and examines breeding males and females, population and effective population sizes, and inbreeding under FAO guidelines.