Little buffalo hogs the limelight

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Little buffalo hogs the limelight

 

Published on Jun 6, 2004

 

 

Chao Khrae was about a metre tall when he was born four years ago.

 

He still is, when other water buffaloes of his age have far outgrown him. His plight has only drawn extra love and understanding from Suphan Meenak, his owner.

 

And now scientists are keen to study his dwarf body with a view to breeding from him.

 

"Who knows? It could be a new export," said Choocheep Cheep-udom, deputy director of Maejo University's Phrae campus.

 

A research team at the university wants to freeze sperm from Chao Khrae while they look for a suitable mate. They may have a wait on their hands: Suphan says that in 10 years of breeding buffaloes Chao Khrae is the only dwarf one she has ever seen.

 

"I couldn't possibly sell him," she said, "and I have been asked."

 

Rachan Phumaphuti, head of the Phrae Livestock Office, puts it down to a genetic mutation, the chances of which he says are one in 10,000.

 

"He was very, very lucky to be born here," Rachan said, noting that in the Northeast they slaughtered dwarf buffaloes as bad luck.

 

Not to Suphan, though. "He's just like a little boy, clumsy but cute and very tame and obedient," she said. "Just call his name and he comes to you."

 

The Nation

 

PHRAE