[Animals 101] How to Breed & Care for Water Buffalos

Welcome to your next "Animal 101" lesson of the Farming Simulator Academy! This time, we're taking care of water buffalos. We'll show you how to buy and house these gentle giants, keep them fed, breed them, and make use of the buffalo milk and other products they provide. Let's get started!

Tip! Water buffalos require a little more planning than some other animals. If you are new to animal husbandry, chickens or sheep offer an easier starting point.

What Is Special About Water Buffalos?

Water buffalos are mainly kept for their milk, but breeding and selling animals can also be profitable.

Before you start: Decide whether you want to concentrate on buffalo milk, breeding, or both. This determines which housing and equipment are useful for your farm.

Housing Options

Water buffalo housing differs in size, price, capacity, and supported products. Check the overview above before deciding where to keep your animals.

• Pasture: Requires feed and water and is mainly suited to breeding.
• Barns: Require feed, but water is supplied automatically. Depending on the barn, they can also support buffalo milk, manure, and slurry production.
• Barn with feeding robot: Automatically prepares and distributes Total Mixed Ration (TMR) as long as enough ingredients are available.

If your barn does not include a feeding robot, you can prepare TMR yourself with a mixer wagon.

Feeding Options

The type of feed you provide determines the productivity of your water buffalos:

• TMR: 100% productivity
• Hay: 80% productivity
• Silage: 80% productivity
• Grass: 40% productivity

Tip! Available meadow can provide grass without you having to deliver it yourself. Keep an eye on the animal tab to make sure enough is available. For maximum productivity, you still need to provide better feed.

TMR consists of straw, hay, silage, and mineral feed. You can produce ingredients such as hay and silage yourself or buy straw, hay, and silage bales under "Objects" > "Bales". Mineral feed is available in the "Pallets" section.

We've covered more information about silage in this tutorial.

How to get water: If your pasture requires water, deliver it with a compatible tank trailer. Fill it from a water tank placed through the construction menu or from a suitable river or lake. Natural water sources are free; water from a placed tank costs money.

Breeding Water Buffalos

Water buffalos pass through different age stages. They can reproduce when:

• they are at least 18 months old,
• their health is at 100%, and
• there is free space for another animal.

Provide enough feed to keep your water buffalos healthy and ready to reproduce.

What You Need For Water Buffalos

You probably won't need every machine shown above. What you actually need depends on the housing, feeding method, and products you choose.

Basic equipment:

• Tractor with a front loader and loading equipment: Use a bale spike for handling bales and a pallet fork for pallets such as mineral feed.
• Mixer wagon: Needed if you want to prepare TMR yourself. A barn with a feeding robot makes this unnecessary.
• Straw blower: Used to distribute straw in barns that support manure production.
• Tank: Used to transport buffalo milk or, alternatively, to deliver water.
• Slurry tank: Used to transport or spread slurry.
• Manure spreader: Needed if you want to transport manure or use it as fertilizer.
• Manure heap: Stores manure produced by a compatible barn. Place it close to the barn.
• Liquid manure tank: Useful if the barn's built-in slurry storage is not large enough.

Optional: Transporting water buffalos yourself

• Use a compatible animal trailer if you want to transport buffalos yourself instead of paying for direct delivery.
• Look for the cow icon to make sure a trailer supports buffalos.
• Larger trailers may require a truck or dolly. Check the displayed "Combinations" before buying.

Tip! If you prefer direct animal delivery, you can skip the animal trailer entirely and pay the delivery fee instead.

Let’s Get To Work!

Step 1: Buy water buffalos

• Choose the age of the animals according to your plans.
• Remember to leave enough room if you want them to reproduce later.
• Buy them directly at the barn or transport them yourself.

Tip! Don't fill your housing completely when buying your first animals. Free capacity gives your water buffalos space to reproduce, and you can either keep or sell the offspring.

Step 2: Feed the water buffalos

Check the animal screen regularly to see whether your water buffalos have everything they need. If you use a pasture with manual water supply, keep its water filled as well.

For maximum productivity, provide TMR. If you use a barn with a feeding robot, unload straw, hay, silage, and mineral feed at the designated areas shown above. The robot prepares and distributes TMR automatically while enough ingredients are available.

Want to produce TMR with a mixer wagon? We'll show you how!

Step 3: Produce manure and slurry

• Manure: Supply straw in a compatible barn and place a manure heap nearby.
• Slurry: Compatible barns collect it automatically in their built-in storage.
• More slurry storage: Add a compatible storage extension if you need additional capacity.
• Using both: Spread manure and slurry on your fields as fertilizer or transport them to a suitable selling point.

A pasture intended only for breeding does not produce manure or slurry.

Step 4: Sell animals and products or use them

Water buffalos provide several ways to earn money or supply your own farm:

• Sell water buffalos: Breed additional animals and sell those you no longer need.
• Sell buffalo milk: Mature water buffalos kept in suitable housing provide buffalo milk that can be sold directly.
• Process buffalo milk: Use production chains to turn it into higher-value dairy products.
• Use manure and slurry: Apply them to your fields as fertilizer or sell them at a suitable selling point such as the biogas plant.

Processing Buffalo Milk: Products

Instead of selling buffalo milk directly, you can deliver it to the dairy for further processing. Buffalo milk can be turned into products like bottled buffalo milk, butter, and buffalo mozzarella.

Tip! Processing buffalo milk takes additional time and may involve further ingredients or production buildings. In return, processed products can provide more value than selling the raw milk directly.

Well Done!

Congratulations! You now know how to care for water buffalos in Farming Simulator. When you're ready, continue with the next Farming Simulator Academy lesson!