Previously thought-about humble draft animals, water buffaloes have grow to be prized present animals in Thailand.
5-year-old Tod, owned by meals vendor and farmer Thawatchai Daeng-Ngam, was one among many rivals on the annual water buffalo racing pageant in Chonburi, a metropolis about an hour’s drive from Bangkok, on Monday.
The pageant is held on the finish of the eleventh lunar month to have fun the start of the harvest season and put a highlight on the animals that had been as soon as important to Thai agriculture.
Lately, tractors have changed buffaloes, as soon as prized for his or her energy and skill to plough fields and transport heavy hundreds.
If the animals are usually not competing in exhibits, they’re offered for meat.
Buffaloes had been the primary attraction on the honest in Chonburi, which kicked off with a parade that includes college students performing conventional Thai dance. A number of the buffaloes wore flower crowns as they pulled conventional picket carriages with wheels 2 meters (6.5 toes) tall, carrying their homeowners and girls wearing conventional Thai garb.
The pageant additionally featured a race with buffaloes ridden by jockeys sprinting down a 100-meter (328-foot) monitor.
Pitun Rassamee got here to compete together with his three-year-old buffalo with white fur. The albino had already gained native competitions, and he hoped Lookaew, which means marble in Thai, would place within the high 5.
There was good cause to be hopeful. One other albino Thai buffalo was offered in 2024 for 18 million baht ($672,000) after profitable a number of pageants.
Altering the function of Thai buffaloes
The shift from cattle to prized symbols has been a gradual one, accompanying the mechanisation of farming. Thailand’s water buffalo inhabitants was in decline for a time.
However the contests have injected new curiosity within the animals, in addition to a brand new business having fun with authorities assist. The Thai authorities designated a Thai Buffalo Conservation Day starting in 2017 and native governments now present breeding help to farmers.
Thawatchai, the meals vendor who owns Tod, mentioned elevating the buffalo for competitors was solely a pastime. He lets it roam freely on his household’s farm and was solely on the pageant to see how Tod measured up with others.
On greater farms, the animals are bathed daily and fed a particular weight loss plan of corn, soybeans, bran and nutritional vitamins, defined Kijchai Angkhanawin, who works as a caretaker for prized buffaloes.
He splashed water on the buffaloes he was overseeing on the pageant, which stood no less than a head taller and had been bulkier than lots of the different animals. They’re judged on horn dimension, hoof smoothness and total physique, he mentioned.
In Chonburi, the buffalo-centred occasions are usually not new, mentioned Papada Srisophon, an assistant to the chief of a village close to a livestock centre the place farmers be taught strategies to lift the animals.
“Annually it has grow to be greater and greater,” Papada mentioned, explaining that the contests are an incentive for the farmers to maintain elevating the animals. “With out this exercise, they gained’t know what to do with their buffaloes, and so they gained’t be motivated to maintain their buffaloes.”
‘Buffaloes elevate folks’
On the Chonburi magnificence pageant, the homeowners and caretakers waited with their buffaloes in shaded pens. Hearth vehicles delivered water for the animals whereas pageant guests posed for footage with the largest animals, and households with babies gathered within the stands.
Caretakers then corralled the big animals into a delegated pen the place judges sporting bolo ties and cowboy hats inspected the contestants.
Lots of the homeowners getting into buffaloes within the competitors mentioned they grew up with the light animals and nonetheless valued them, even when they may not be of use on the farm.
“Though buffaloes can nonetheless work within the subject, they can’t compete with machines,” mentioned Thawatchai, whose household nonetheless retains 30 buffaloes, together with Tod.
“Buffaloes are nonetheless vital to me. It’s like what they mentioned: ‘Individuals elevate buffaloes, and buffaloes elevate folks.’ It’s like a member of the family.”
