STIRLING – Lori Smith and Martin Littkemann’s water buffalo herd made themselves at home on the 350-acre beef and cash crop farm near Stirling by digging a new watering hole to play in. The owners compare them to dogs, not cows.

"They’re curious like Jersey cows, but like human affection," said Smith. "They thrive on human contact. They are even friendlier than Jerseys. They don’t like to be ignored."

Littkemann and Smith jumped into the water buffalo business one year ago after a friend had read about it and mentioned the idea. "Martin looked at him and said, ‘they milk those?"

Said Littkemann: "We had the beef and the crop. But with rising production costs, we wanted to find a way to stay on the farm."

They did their homework. Almost two years ago they went to the World Water Buffalo Conference in Italy, a country where there are more water buffalo being milked than there are Holsteins in Ontario.

"There were viable operations in Italy," said Littkemann. "That cheese is being imported to Canada every week. So, why not make the cheese here?"

One year ago, their Ontario Water Buffalo Company opened for business and they purchased 40-head from a Vermont farm, becoming the first milking herd in Ontario, the second in Canada. There are now four milking herds in Ontario. The first water buffalo herd started on Vancouver Island in about 2002.

Littkemann’s herd was quarantined with a bull for testing and by the time he got hold of them, 15 were pregnant. He began milking at the end of September in a tie-stall barn with portable automatic milkers on an overhead track. At about the same time, they bought 10 Bulgarian Murrahs water buffalo cows from the Vancouver Island herd.

The cows are seasonal breeders, like sheep. So Littkemann and Smith use techniques to encourage spring calving to ensure peak milk production at same time as demand for mozzarella di buffalo is highest: the summer months. Why? Because it’s the key ingredient in Caprese salad. The cheese is a porcelein white mozarella ball processed to about the size of an egg. It is creamy but with texture like foam and the fat oozes out of it when you slice into it. It is like cheese curds. You want to eat them the day they are made because it is squeaky fresh. Even after one day, the taste loses freshness.

While Smith works full-time off-farm, Littkemann says he has now reached the point of being full-time on-farm, milking 20 cows. He doesn’t need to buy quota for the animals so he can expand quickly. He expects to be milking 30 cows in another month and hire his first full-time employee. He sells the milk to Quality Cheese, an Italian specialty cheese factory in Toronto.

All the milk produced goes into making the speciality buffalo mozzarella ball "There’s a big demand for this now."

While Eastern Ontario is cheddar country, he said, most people in Toronto seem to know about buffalo mozzarella. "I was shocked."

During lactation, a water buffalo can produce approximately 3,000 kg annually, while an average Holstein cow in Canada produces 9,733 kg of milk, he said. Water buffalo milk is highly prized with fat tests averaging from seven to nine per cent, and protein tests averaging between four and five per cent.

Water buffalo eat a regular diet of hay and grain, just like a regular dairy cow but they are more efficient eaters, he said. "Compare them to a dry cow."

But don’t compare this type of exotic niche farming to emus and ostriches, he said. It’s more like the goat and sheep industry. Both markets grew from nothing over the past 30 years.

It’s a different story elsewhere. Water buffalo milk makes up 15 per cent of the world’s milk supply and 95 per cent of the water buffalo population is found in Asian countries, such as India and Thailand.

"By August, we’ll be milking 35," said Littkemann. "We’re humping along."