CATTLE of all sorts are hardly a new sight on the Three Counties Showground, but this weekend will see a first for the venue.

Because a couple of young water buffalo will be making the breed's debut at Malvern Autumn Garden and Country Show.

As I write they haven't got names, but you can bet your bottom dollar they will have by the time they arrive from the Warwickshire farm of Roger and Marie Alsop at Napton on the Hill.

Water buffalo are generally, friendly, docile and intelligent creatures, not like their fiery African counterparts the Cape buffalo, and Buttercup and Daisy would probably suit them very well, or whatever the Asian equivalents are.

The pair are at the show to promote buffalo milk ice cream, which is produced by a small specialist manufacturer in Banbury using milk from the Alsop's herd.

It might not yet rival chocolate chip or toffee fudge with the ice cream cognoscenti, but is catching on fast.

"Water buffalo ice cream has a much lower fat content than ordinary ice cream, is higher in calcium and protein and has no artificial colours, flavours or additives," said maker Steve Holley of the Cropredy Bridge Ice Cream Company giving the hard sell.

"It is also suitable for people with an intolerance to dairy products."

All this might be very well, but is unlikely to bother messy mouthed children too much as long as they like the taste.

That is probably why, enter stage left, the two young buffalo to catch the kids' interest.

And they certainly will, because water buffalo are among the most sociable of all bovines. In their native lands they tend to live in and around the villages, moseying about as though they'd be quite happy to saunter into a hut and flop down in a corner and go to sleep.

In Asia and the Middle East they live on coarse vegetation on the marginal land traditionally left to the peasants and provide a protein source through milk and meat and a tractor through their ability to haul. The number of buffalo a family owns is also a gauge of its wealth.

This is not necessarily so with Roger and Marie Alsop, whose ancestors have been farmers since the mid 1600s and at Napton on the Hill, near Southam, since the mid-1800s.

A traditional 150-acre beef and dairy farm, they introduced water buffalo in 1999 to help out with Milk Quota problems.

"There is no Milk Quota for water buffalo, so we

can produce as much as we like," Roger explained.

His initial 20 beasts were purchased from another farmer at Shipston-on-Stour, but water buffalo as a breed were first introduced into Britain about 12 years ago from Romania and Italy.

The original 20 have now become 80, which includes a milking herd of 30 with the remainder young heifers or bulls, all of which have been bred on the farm.

"They are very docile to handle, but very intelligent," Roger added.

"If they get bored they can be very destructive. They'll soon have your gates off or your wire fences down. The best way to enclose them is by a good electric fence.

"They love a lot of fuss and we'll probably chose a couple of real friendly youngsters to take to Malvern. They should be a big hit."

As far as the history lesson goes, water buffalo have been associated with Man from the earliest prehistoric times. They were brought into Europe from the Middle East by the Crusaders and have become so docile, they can often be seen being tended and ridden by small children.

Their main attraction in the Western world is that their meat and milk is considered very healthy, being low in fat and cholesterol.

Buffalo ice cream, the reason the animals are at the Autumn Show, is a relatively new product.

Steve Holley, a computer expert by trade who has designed such games as Starsky and Hutch and Colin McCrea's Rally, began making it earlier this year following a right-angle career change. He spent six months researching the market and the manufacturing process before launching the ice cream.

"It's something completely different," he said.

"I set out to produce a very high-quality ice cream and that led me to using water buffalo milk."

In an old bakehouse at Prescote Manor he also makes hand-made Jersey ice cream and a range of specialist sorbets.

But it is the buffaloes that will melt the hearts this weekend and, as you might say, scoop all the attention. Ice cream? Scoop? OK. That's all.