Two months ago (yup, I'm real late on this one) I went on a field visit that involved me traveling with the migratory Gujjar tribe. They travel with their buffaloes, so I got to know these creatures fairly intimately. These are the things I learned (as told to me by Gujjars or as I witnessed):
- Buffaloes walk damn slowly.
- Buffalo eyes glow in the dark. Or at least they appeared to at times, and it totally creeped me out.
- A group of 27 buffaloes ate approximately 200 kg of grass twice a day = one buffalo eats approximately 15 kg a day.
- A single buffalo can poop up to 10 kg of dung a day.
- This poop can be collected by women's bare hands and turned into dung patties for future use, "just like making chapatis." But the women cannot possibly collect all the poop, as there is just way too much of it.
- Buffalo placenta can come out 9 hours after the newborn baby buffalo (calf?), and I thought it was the most disgusting thing I'd ever seen. Until the mother buffalo ate the placenta. Then that was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen.
- Although newborn baby buffaloes can stand and even wobble/attempt to walk within hours of being born, they cannot walk completely properly until they are 10 days old. So, naturally, someone has to carry it:
This is an awesome picture =)
ReplyDelete