Pottery buffalo excavated from Xichang Sanpo confirms the history of cattle breeding in the Anning River Basin

Chinese buffalo can be divided into coastal buffalo, lake buffalo, highland buffalo and South China buffalo. China's excellent local breed Dechang buffalo belongs to the plateau buffalo.

Dechang buffalo is divided into three kinds of coat colors: black hair, yellow hair, and reed flower (black and white), and the black hair is superior, with a tall body, thick limbs, solid hooves, and strong tillage.

Dechang buffalo is mainly produced in Dechang County, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, and is also distributed in Xichang, Mianning, Huili and Panzhihua rice in the prefecture, adapting to altitudes of 480-2520 meters.

According to the tao buffalo of the Eastern Han Dynasty unearthed in Xichang Sanpo, it is already a typical body shape of the service water buffalo "weighing cattle", indicating that long before the Han Dynasty, the ancestors living in the Anning River Basin raised the "Dechang buffalo". The Old Chronicle of the Dechang Buffalo "has a tall body, especially the strong." The county belongs to the Han people, and the general feeding is used as a substitute for farming."

The traditional feeding method of buffalo is private herding, or driving them to the hillside, or releasing them on the riverbank, returning to the twilight, feeding with grass, and adding refined feeds such as glutinous rice porridge during service.

In recent years, due to the popularity of modern agricultural machinery, machine ploughing has gradually replaced buffalo ploughing, and the number of buffalo in Dechang has decreased rapidly. To this end, Dechang County has increased the measures for the protection of buffalo breeding, and has carried out competitions, evaluations, rewards for breeding and other activities to promote the development of the cattle industry. There are 12 adult breeding bulls; 925 cows, of which 910 are fertile cows. (Source: Sichuan Daily)