Watusi cattle are herbivores, and their diet includes grasses, leaves, and acorns. Their digestive systems have the ability to utilize poor quality and limited quantities of food and water. These survival abilities have allowed them as a breed to not only survive the centuries in Africa but to become established on the continents of Europe, South America, Australia, and North America. Their life expectancy is more than 20 years.

The animals' large horns are honeycombed with blood vessels and are used to thermo-regulate in hot temperatures. Blood moving through the horns is cooled by moving air, and then flows back into the body and lowers the animal's body temperature.