The Cape buffalo, scientifically known as Syncerus caffer, is a prominent resident of Tanzania’s national parks and game reserves. Also known as the African buffalo, this species belongs to the “Big Five” game animals, a designation that includes some of Africa’s most sought-after wildlife. African buffalo are hardy critters, able to live and flourish in many habitats-from semi-arid bushland to coastal savannas to lowland rainforests-as long as they’re close to a water source. These large animals require water daily, so they depend on perennial sources of water.
Physical Characteristics and Habitat
Savanna buffaloes are large, heavy, cow-like animals. They vary greatly in size, horn shape, and coloring. Adults are usually dark gray or black, sometimes appearing red or white if they have been wallowing in mud of that color, while the young are often reddish-brown. The smaller forest buffalo maintains a red color even as an adult, although in western Uganda, many savanna buffaloes are also red or pale orange instead of black. Both males and females have heavy, ridged horns that grow straight out from the head or curve downward and then up. In large adult males, the horns meet in the middle of their heads and are joined by a hard shield called a "boss.” This creates a helmet-esque formation. The horns are used for defense and to determine dominance for mating. Females also have horns that are narrower and smaller.
African buffaloes primarily reside in savannah grasslands, floodplains, and forests. They favor areas with dense brush or woodland, which provide cover and a rich supply of grass. Buffalo are often pictured covered in mud with a bird on their back. The mud helps buffalo get rid of ticks and parasites that latch onto their skin. Birds such as oxpeckers, for example, ride on the back of the buffalo and eat lice, fleas, and other parasites while getting a lift.
General Dietary Habits
Grass forms the bulk of the buffalo’s diet: Predation is less essential than food supplies in controlling population size. Buffaloes quickly degrade in the absence of fresh green forage. They spend a significant amount of time feeding and grazing. As herbivores, they primarily consume grass, often relocating to areas where grass is abundant. During the rainy season, when grass is plentiful, it forms the bulk of their diet. Like cows, buffalo chew cud to further extract nutrients. Like many other herbivores, Cape buffaloes are ruminants, which means they have a specialized four-chambered stomach.
Buffalo are broadly classified as bulk grazers, spending 40-80 per cent of their time feeding and ruminating depending on the season. Rumination is the process through which selected forage, already in the rumen, is repeatedly regurgitated into the mouth and back to the rumen to decrease particle size and buffer rumen pH via saliva; these fine food particles are degraded in the rumen by microbial action and fermentation. These small particles pass through into the omasum, then the abomasum, and then the small and large intestine for further degradation, digestion and nutrient absorption.
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African buffalo consume a wide variety of grass species, with grass constituting a relatively high proportion of their diet (75-100 per cent), but utilize more browse during the dry season or in different vegetation zones (woodlands or forest) when they are forced to graze less selectively and browse on woody shrubs, increasing the browse proportion of their diet.
Specific Grass Species and Dietary Preferences
African buffalo are relatively unselective grazers but prefer highly palatable nutrient-rich grass. In extensive systems of southern Africa within granite and basalt landscapes, they depend primarily on Panicum spp. (mostly P. maximum) throughout the year. As the dry season progresses, Digitaria eriantha and Urochloa mosambicensis (previously also known as U. usambarensis) and Cynodon dactylon are the predominant species consumed. Some Bothriochloa spp. become important contributors to the buffalo’s diet during the transition from wet to dry seasons, but mostly not B. insculpta, while Eragrostis spp. contribute towards the end of the dry season.
Important cattle forage species, like Themeda triandra, which generally hold more fibrous content during the dry season, are less favored by African buffalo under low-input management conditions. Furthermore, Cymbopogon plurinodis, Bothriochloa spp., Pogonarthria squarrosa, Aristida spp., and Setaria spp. tend to be rejected by buffalo, regardless of the season.
Environmental Factors Influencing Diet
The quantity (amount) and quality (nutrients) of grazing is influenced by soil type, topography, rainfall, ambient temperature, and animal stocking rate/density. In semi-extensive ranching systems, these factors need to be taken cognizance of, as the manager only has control over the number of animals placed in the ranch/camp/paddock (stocking rate/density), keeping in mind factors such as carrying capacity.
Safe stocking rate (referred to as ‘carrying capacity’ by many game and livestock ranchers) can be defined as the number of animals that a specific piece of land can accommodate annually without degrading the quality of the forage, and can be measured in different animal units, generally known as large stock or large animal units (LSU or LAU), grazing and browsing units (GU/BU) in southern Africa. One LSU is equivalent to a steer (cattle) with a body mass of 450 kg that is growing 500 g per day by feeding on grazing that has a mean digestible energy concentration of 55 per cent, thus supplying 75 MJ ME per day. A grazing unit (GU) is a 180 kg blue wildebeest and a browsing unit (BU) is a 180 kg kudu requiring 29.71 MJ ME per day. These methods are conservative ways to calculate a piece of land’s safe stocking rate if its grazing and browsing capacity has been assessed. This prevents overutilization of the available forage and ensures that the quantity and quality of grazing do not deteriorate over time.
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Nutritional Requirements and Supplementary Feeding
When estimating the carrying capacity and stocking rate on semi-extensive systems, the average LSUC or GUC/BUC value for the specific species should be used. Using averages for all production phases will undersupply energy to lactating females, as well as growing and adult males.
When the stocking rate exceeds the assessed safe stocking rate, the property is overstocked, making it necessary to purchase or supply stored roughage of a suitable quality to reach the desired reproductive goals. In circumstances where the stocking rate equals, or is lower than, the assessed safe stocking rate, and the quality of the available grazing is not suitable for optimal reproductive performance, the specific nutrients that nature cannot supply must be provided so the ranch can reach the desired production goal. The production constraining nutrients normally found in dry grasses are digestible protein, minerals, and vitamins.
It is important to note that no specific nutrient guidelines currently exist for buffalo, so cattle data are used to extrapolate the nutrient requirements for buffalo and other similar species. The nutrient concentration and the amount to be fed are directly influenced by the nutrient requirements of the animals/herds at that specific time, the quantity and quality of the natural grazing (high correlation with rainfall) or supplied roughage, seasonal changes, availability of raw materials, manufacturing equipment, and storage of the mixed feed and raw materials.
Estimating Nutrient Requirements
When considering nutrient requirements for wild animals, a similar well-studied species is used as a proxy when formulating feeds; when considering the bulk-grazing African buffalo, other bulk grazing species such as beef cattle and water buffalo (Bubalis bubalus) data can be used.
Using cattle nutrient requirement data to estimate the daily nutrient requirements of buffalo is of little value if the buffalo’s average weight, physiological state, and daily DMI are unknown; thus, these are important factors to account for when formulating a supplement/feed for buffalo. Knowing the physiological state and average weight aids in calculating the animal’s nutrient requirements, and nutrient analysis of the grass or roughage supplied to the animals will aid in calculating what shortfalls exist.
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In addition to providing sufficient quantities of feed, the quality (nutrients) of feed, which includes the energy, protein, fibre, and trace elements (vitamins and minerals) content, is important for ensuring optimal production and reproduction based on the animals’ nutrient requirements.
The calculated LSUC, GUC, and BUC methods discussed above are currently the most accurate method to calculate the energy requirements for game animals, where the energy used by the animal is expressed as ME, measured in megajoules (MJ). When conditions are favorable, ruminants eat to meet their energy requirements rather than to fill their rumens (intake capacity). However, during the dry season, when the available ME in the selected grazing is too low to meet maintenance/lactation requirements, the animals cannot consume more grass or browse to satisfy their requirements, the main reason being that the total amount of feed intake per unit of time is restricted by their thoracic cavity (restricted rumen capacity).
Protein Intake and Requirements
The supply and intake of protein are the main factors controlling production performance in ruminants like cattle and buffalo on dry rangeland. The minimum crude protein requirement of buffalo is 7-8 per cent, which may be provided by browse when available.
When considering dietary protein supply in ruminants, it can generally be broken down into rumen-degradable protein (RDP) and rumen-undegradable protein (UDP). Ruminants require protein (nitrogen and amino acids) for two important functions. First, specific amino acids are needed for their metabolic processes (UDP). Second, and more importantly, protein from grass and supplemental feed is needed to supply the necessary nitrogen (RDP) to the rumen microbes to multiply, playing a pivotal role in increasing the VFI of dry forage.
A ruminant’s RDP requirement in general can be calculated using the following equation: RDP = live body weight0.75 × 4. The VFI of dry grass is directly related to the concentration of RDP in the forage and/or feed. While buffalo can increase their dietary protein intake by increasing their VFI, they are constrained by the need to ruminate, which competes with grazing time.
Seasonal Variations and Adaptations
From March until August, African forest buffalo spend most of their time in the forest, while from September through February, they favor the savannas and marshes.
In the wet season, herds are more spread out in the forest and these animals tend to use resting places based on sand during the wet season, but use dirt and leaves during the dry season.