While bison are often seen on foot, an important part of their daily routine involves resting together in a sitting or laying position. They usually will do this multiple times in a 24-hour period and spend the time either sleeping or ruminating (chewing cud). Below are several photographic examples of this behavior.
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| Here is the classic bison reclining posture in which they will often be ruminating. |
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| An alternative to the classic position is the sitting-up-with-head-down position. The bison in this picture is probably dozing. |
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| And then there's the complete relaxation position. |
Recently, since the restoration of my sickle bar mower, I've been using the mower to mow the grass that grows next to and under the electric fence to prevent the growing grass from shorting the electricity. In previous years Jess and I had used a brush cutter and the bison mostly ignored us, but the sickle bar mower interests them greatly. Almost as soon as I begin mowing they will come running from wherever they had been grazing, gather around, and watch me mow the grass. They always stay well away from the mower itself, but, as soon as the tractor begins to move away, they will begin to eye the newly cut grass intently. If left to their own devices, some of them will begin to try to reach under the wires with their heads to eat the grass.
In an effort to curb their interest in reaching under the electric fence, I've now begun to toss the grass over to their side of the fence as I mow. To do this I first mow about 50 feet of grass, stop mowing, backup the tractor and run the sickle bar over the same area again without the blades moving in the bar. In this way the sickle bar becomes a sort of giant rake that piles up the cut grass in front of it. After I've gathered all of the cut grass into a pile, I stop the tractor, walk over to the pile, pick it up and toss it over the fence. At that point the bison will all rush over to the pile, begin eating the grass in the pile, and I will return to the tractor and begin mowing the next 50 feet of grass. Interestingly, each time I toss over a new pile of cut grass, the bison will abandon the previous pile of grass and rush toward the new pile. When I've completed all of the mowing and there are no more new piles of grass the bison will eat some of the grass from the newest pile, then go back to the other piles, and eat more grass for another ten minutes or so before abandoning the cut grass altogether and resuming their normal grazing. I really can't explain this behavior other than that perhaps they simply enjoy the novelty of grass that has been cut.
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| A photograph taken today of the bison grazing. |
