Sick Buffalo

[tsicar]

having been exposed to information gleaned from various forums, i might be forgiven for my reluctance to eat buffalo....seems the buggers are always sick....
now, i come from a country where good quality beef is relatively cheap, and i love the stuff, but any beef i have bought in isaan has been absolute shite!. tough as nails, with no fat content.
i know nothing about farming cattle, but it seems obvious that the local thai farmers are doing something wrong, in spite of putting in huge effort driving their few scrawny beasts many kilometres every day to pasture.
obviously something is lacking nutrition-wise, and i am sure this is all to do with ignorance, as they seem to get enough to eat, but remain scrawny.
in contrast, the buffalo all look to me like farang cattle- hefty, plenty flesh on their bones, and quite edible-looking (in spite of them all getting sick all the time)
i once went to the market to try to buy some buffalo meat and the thai salesperson laughed like hell. i explained in thai what my problem is with eating skinny cows and all, and she laughed and sed that if i come early in the morning to buy beef, i would probably be sold buffalo! but there did not seem to be anybody selling the stuff labelled "buffalo"
can anybody tell me why the buffalo get fat and the bloody cows stay scrawny and tough?-they seem to eat the same shit, or am i mistaken?

[jizzybloke]

I'm glad someone asked this, i wanted to a while ago but forgot.

[Ivor Biggun]

Thais butcher their cows when they are old, they like beef tough. Where as we butcher when cows are still young and supple. When a calf is born and it's a bull then it's not much use to a Thai, they want females for reproduction and milk. Wife tells me a new born calf, male, sells for 500 Baht. All you need is someone who has butchery skills and you have veal.

[watterinja]

Buffalo suffer from a number of ailments:

1. ATMitis;
2. BG syndrome;
3. MILmaisabai

Amongst the usual tick-borne & other local diseases. The first two are the most contagious. Buyer beware.

[tsicar]

Buffalo suffer from a number of ailments:

1. ATMitis;
2. BG syndrome;
3. MILmaisabai

Amongst the usual tick-borne & other local diseases. The first two are the most contagious. Buyer beware.

i wouldnt even think about investing in farming them. i just wanna eat one! just curious as to why they all look good and fat, and the cows, which supposedly eat the same stuff, are so bloody scrawny.

[Norton]

now, i come from a country where good quality beef is relatively cheap, and i love the stuff, but any beef i have bought in isaan has been absolute shite!. tough as nails, with no fat content.

Next time you're in Isaan go to Sakorn Nakorn. Just outside on the road to Mukdahan there is a Thai/French cattle ranch. It has great beef. They have a Charolais breed that is properly fed and butchered.

The problem with local beef is threefold. They are Brahman breed not noted for good beef production, they are never/seldom grain fed and the butchering techniques are shite.

Those "fat" buffalo you see are really not fat but are usually suffering from bloat from all the intestinal parasites and infections. You can eat em but suggest you stick with the wide assortment of insects if your looking for undiseased protein and fat.

[Texpat]

My wife claims farmers here supplement the cow's diet with nothing but a song.
Real cows have their pasture diet supplemented with other shit that I have no idea about. I'm assuming it's vitamins and hay and crappy corn that humans don't eat and peanut butter sandwiches and something or other.

[Ivor Biggun]

My wife claims farmers here supplement the cow's diet with nothing but a song.

She's absolutely right. Once the rice is in the fields bovine are basically then on a diet for about 4 to 5 months. It's a case of eat anything green that's free during during that time. No chance of the farmers buying processed food.

[tsicar]

now, i come from a country where good quality beef is relatively cheap, and i love the stuff, but any beef i have bought in isaan has been absolute shite!. tough as nails, with no fat content.

Next time you're in Isaan go to Sakorn Nakorn. Just outside on the road to Mukdahan there is a Thai/French cattle ranch. It has great beef. They have a Charolais breed that is properly fed and butchered.

The problem with local beef is threefold. They are Brahman breed not noted for good beef production, they are never/seldom grain fed and the butchering techniques are shite.

Those "fat" buffalo you see are really not fat but are usually suffering from bloat from all the intestinal parasites and infections. You can eat em but suggest you stick with the wide assortment of insects if your looking for undiseased protein and fat.

thanks for that. so for me, its back to chicken and pork.dont eat any seafood, so it all gets a bit boring.

[Driventowin]

And like someone else said on here earlier. They butcher them when their older because that way they have gotten the most of the other uses out of them first.
It's a different thought process as the West where we farm and butcher numbers just for food, that's an after thought here.. After they have gotten everything else they can out of them first..

[Jet Gorgon]

OM gods! Don't let the BGs read this thread!

That's pretty funny, Wat.

Buffalo suffer from a number of ailments:

1. ATMitis;
2. BG syndrome;
3. MILmaisabai

Amongst the usual tick-borne & other local diseases. The first two are the most contagious. Buyer beware.

[RandomChances]

Most of the scrawny cow you see grazing on the side of the road are'nt sold directly for beef, you basicaly have two sorts of beef farms, those that breed cattle (the one you see) and more of a feed lot operation which fatten them up for selling for beef.

The breeding option will keep female cattle to produce calfs, usually by AI, they then run these with their mothers and graze them on just about anything, mabye suplementing with rice straw. When the calfs are arount 12-16 months old they will sell them on to a feedlot farm, these generaly keep them for around 3 months, don't graze them and feed them on a suplemented diet to bulk them up before selling to a slaughter house.

The stuff you get from the markets can be anything. As as far as I know the slaughter house will buy anything, sick and dying cows old breeders ect (I've sold a few myself) so for market mest there is no quality control. As someone mentioned the Thai/Charolais is usually pretty good and it's thanks to ventures like this that at least supermarket beef is of a much better quality than before (still not on a par with imported)

As for buffalo meat, it is pretty tough and usually more expensive than beef Buffalo are more resistant to many parasites you get in Thailand and being an indiginous specias better adapted to the local diet

[tsicar]

Most of the scrawny cow you see grazing on the side of the road are'nt sold directly for beef, you basicaly have two sorts of beef farms, those that breed cattle (the one you see) and more of a feed lot operation which fatten them up for selling for beef.

The breeding option will keep female cattle to produce calfs, usually by AI, they then run these with their mothers and graze them on just about anything, mabye suplementing with rice straw. When the calfs are arount 12-16 months old they will sell them on to a feedlot farm, these generaly keep them for around 3 months, don't graze them and feed them on a suplemented diet to bulk them up before selling to a slaughter house.

The stuff you get from the markets can be anything. As as far as I know the slaughter house will buy anything, sick and dying cows old breeders ect (I've sold a few myself) so for market mest there is no quality control. As someone mentioned the Thai/Charolais is usually pretty good and it's thanks to ventures like this that at least supermarket beef is of a much better quality than before (still not on a par with imported)

As for buffalo meat, it is pretty tough and usually more expensive than beef Buffalo are more resistant to many parasites you get in Thailand and being an indiginous specias better adapted to the local diet

thanks r.c.
dont really get near enough to a supermarket out where i live, so mostly it has been the stuff they stab to death in their backyards. same with the pork, but i cook the hell out of the stuff and hopefully kill all the bugs this way. problem is, i really love my beef blue-rare.....

[Ivor Biggun]

slaughter house

No such niceties around here. A cow is butchered where it has it's thoat cut. It's then cut up on it's side. After one side has been dimembered it is rolled over and the other side is then done. The carcass never touches the ground only the hide. Very clever how they do it. All the meat is placed on banana leaves to be be sorted. During this time people are drinking the blood and eating raw tasty parts like the liver.

[Dalton]

^ Thanks for the info, I will now enjoy my breakfast....

[CharleyFarley]

Worms, they affect pigs too, are the worst enemy to healthy fat cows. The locals just don't bother de-worming because of the cost.
I've seen the buggers come out of pig shit longer than your arm.

With Buffalo as RC says are less fussy with what they eat like almost anything, whereas a cow won't eat certain grass types.

[RandomChances]

dont really get near enough to a supermarket out where i live, so mostly it has been the stuff they stab to death in their backyards. same with the pork, but i cook the hell out of the stuff and hopefully kill all the bugs this way. problem is, i really love my beef blue-rare..

Yea I was about 70 km from the nearest supermarket as well, but even the market stuff was'nt 'stabed in the backyard' beef, that is usually reserved for home parties and the like

No such niceties around here. A cow is butchered where it has it's thoat cut. It's then cut up on it's side. After one side has been dimembered it is rolled over and the other side is then done. The carcass never touches the ground only the hide. Very clever how they do it. All the meat is placed on banana leaves to be be sorted. During this time people are drinking the blood and eating raw tasty parts like the liver.

Again thats usually home consumption stuff, slaughter houses , well their Thai equivelent are all over the place, could even just be a house that specilises in it. The above sound simular to when we used to get a pig for a party.

Worms, they affect pigs too, are the worst enemy to healthy fat cows. The locals just don't bother de-worming because of the cost.
I've seen the buggers come out of pig shit longer than your arm.

It's false economy no to de-worm a shot costs less than 100 bhat, although you should'nt eat the meat for about a month after, usae to be a pain with the cows cos we could'nt sell the milk for the same ammount of time, usually waited until we dried them off before giving birth.

[Panda]

Buy a steer and fatten it up yourself . Even paying a local farmer to hand feed it for 3 months, you will end up with good quality beef for less than 50 baht a kilo. You will need a freezer and a cryovac machine though.