Buffalo Dan's Bison

Me working on the fencing in an idyllic pastoral setting. It's been six months since I resigned from a very stable government career to pursue bison ranching full-time and I thought it would be a good idea to take a moment to reflect on my decision. I had written a whole bunch of stuff on this topic, but then decided to cut most of it and keep things simple.  Do I regret the decision to make such a radical change in my life course? No. Do I think it was the right thing for me to do? Probably, yes. Is my life better now than before? Yes, definitely.   Am I a more cheerful person surrounded by sunshine and rainbows all the time? No.  A number of people from my old job had this idea that I would be living some idyllic rural lifestyle.  I never had this misconception.  I grew up in the country and had already worked on the ranch for over a year.  When I'm at the ranch I'm almost always working hard on something and it is rare that I am not in some way suffer

Our target date for picking up our new bison bull is January 3rd, which isn't soon enough for our all female bison herd.  In addition to the three-year-old bull, will also be getting two bull calves.  Each will have a separate compartment in the trailer during transport. Last year we had set up the temporary electric portion of our fencing using untreated pine logs.  These have now been replaced by more reliable pressure treated posts.  Below are photos of the replacements starting from the northernmost portion of the temporary fencing. The new posts (left) were first install next to to old posts, then each wire was transferred.  Once all the wires were transferred the old brace was disassembled, the old posts were pulled, and the holes filled in.  The final phase of transferring the wires and pulling the posts is the most exhausting because once you start you usually can't stop until you're finished. The next brace was an inside corner brace.  Then an outsid

After we posted our ad for a bison bull in the NBA member's forum, we received a large number of reponsed and have found a seller in Texas with a bull that we intend to purchase.  In preparation for the transportation of the new bull we've been adding a few upgrades to our equipment. As mentioned in a previous post, Delta cattle trailers don't come with a painted bottom unless you ask for it.  I didn't know I had to request it when I ordered the trailer and only recently noticed the problem when I happend to look under the trailer.  Yesterday, I finally finished sanding and painting the underside of the trailer.  That was a very hard job, which I never never intend to do again.  I used an angle grinder with a wire wheel to scrape away all of the rust.  This took about two days of intermittent work.  I wore leather gloves, a respirator, and a face shield, but still manage to injure myself when I briefly and stupidly lost control of the angle grinder, which b

Although the trailer deck boards are already pressure treated I decided it wouldn't hurt to give them a coating of linseed oil.  Coating should help to reduce the absorption of urine and feces during transportation and extend the life of the boards.  Tomorrow I plan to post an internal advertisement to National Bison Association members for from one to three plains bison bulls of three to four years in age.  When we purchased bison last year, Delta Manufacturing, the company from which we had purchased our cattle trailer, had not yet completed fabrication of the trailer so we ended up paying someone to bring the bison from North Dakota.  This year, however, we have the trailer and plan to haul the bison ourselves.  In preparation of this momentous occasion I've been painstakingly checking the truck and trailer to make sure everything is in working order.  I'm sure glad I did that.  The photos in this post illustrate some of the things we've encountered.  When som

Well spaced bison on our upper pasture.   My recent decreased blog activity has largely been due to my singular focus on completing a quarter mile section of fencing along the eastern boundary of our property, which I am happy to announce was completed this week. This is significant because it opens several acres of additional land to the bison.  The following pictures document this new fencing.  This newly installed gate connects the new permanent fence (barely visible on the left side of the photo) with what remains of the more temporary electric fencing (on the right side).  Moving north from the new gate, the new permanent fence stretches 500 feet before turning east.  This new fence combines three electric wires (one on the bottom and two on the top) with woven wire.  The spot where the fence turns east for 500 feet.  Midway through the east-heading fence I had to insert a slight bend to accommodate a slight bend in the property line.   This is the spot wher

Summer thunderstorms, which occur frequently during the hottest weather. One question that I've been asked about bison has been if loud noises 'spook' them with the implication being that they might stampede.  I have not had enough experience with enough bison to definitively answer this question.  Consequently, the most I can do is relate what I have witnessed thus far. In our remote part of southern Virginia the pristine rural silence is usually only shattered by one of five things: thunder, military aircraft, artillery, my tractor, and guns. As indicated by the above photograph, lightning and thunder are not uncommon on our ranch during the summer.  They do not, however, appear to influence the bison.  Even when a deafening bolt of lightning struck the trees within 50 yards (which nearly made me wet my pants), the bison didn't care. An F 15 Eagle engaged in low level flight training. Our ranch lies squarely in the center of both a military operations

A European bison bull on the left and American bison bull on the right. European bison photograph courtesy of Rewilding Europe ( www.rewildingeurope.com ). Many people in the United States think of bison ( Bison bison ) or "buffalo" as an animal unique to North America like the wild turkey.  In fact, there is a very rare species of bison native to Europe and Asia called the European bison ( Bison bonasus ) currently living in several European countries. While the two species have many similar features, I have read that there are some differences.  A good general description of the differences between the two species can be found on page 621 of the 1889 Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution : The European bison, or zubr ( Bison bonassus ), bears very close resemblance to its American relative, but is a little taller, not so heavily built at the fore quarters, and lack the shaggy hair about the head and neck that give the American bison

 Since we started fencing the perimeter of our ranch in 2014, I've strove to increase the rate at which I am able to fence an area.  Among the most recent improvements has been a t-post pusher which is mounted to our tractor's front-end loader bucket.  This device is very simple, but has already saved us countless hours of work. The following photographs illustrate how I use the post pusher.  Aiming: The loader is first positioned with the end of the pusher is close to the ground.  I then maneuver the tractor until the end of the pusher is in alignment with the marked post location.  This is how the lined up pusher looks from the driver's seat of the tractor.  Yes, I know the loader has an issue with the hydraulics cover. Loading:  Once the pusher is aligned, I place the tractor in park, raise the loader arm and insert a t-post into the open end of the pusher.  Tilting:  Correct placement of the t-post is dependent aligning the post along three axises,

Since the number of submitted bison jokes has thus far been only two, I've held off on posting anything new in order to stretch things out.  Shortly after my initial call for bison jokes , one individual referred me to the following joke originally posted on http://www.jokes4us.com/animaljokes/buffalojokes.html : Q: What did the grape say when the buffalo stood on it? A: Nothing, it just let out a little wine!

When we purchased and installed our modest photovoltaic (solar electric) system last winter it made an incredible improvement to our quality of life on the ranch.  With it we are able to have enough AC power day or night to use a computer, recharge cell phones, operate the trailer heater, and many other things vital to functioning in a modern capacity. Because I was working a full-time job and had just acquired (rather traumatically ) my first 10 bison, I never had the opportunity to properly install all of the solar equipment.  Now that I am ranching full-time, I've finally gotten a chance to do a better job.  The following pictures illustrate these improvements.  My improvised outdoor housing for the batteries, charge controller, and inverter.  A truly sad arrangement, but it did keep the equipment dry.  A wooden pallet was stacked on top of the containers to keep them from blowing away in the wind.  The batteries and other equipment with the covers take