Buffalo Dan's Bison

Our older herd bull (right) eating hay with No. 29 (left) and No. 28 (standing behind 29).  No. 29, one of our younger bulls, exhibited some interesting behavior the other day, which I though was worth mentioning.  The following videos (greatly enlarged and cropped from the originals) were captured with a body camera I was wearing while walking past the bison herd.  Usually, when I walk near the bison, they quickly recognize me and either ignore me or slowly walk over to see what I'm doing.  In this instance I surprised them by approaching from a direction I normally wouldn't approach from and, for at least a short time, they didn't seem sure about who I was.  When they are unsure if the human they've spotted is me, it's not unusual for them to act alarmed, but, as you will see, No. 29's behavior took things to a new level.  In the first video (above) you will see several female bison and calves on the right being chased by No. 29.  Then, at around 0:08

  When bison are corralled in a relatively large pen and under low stress situations the pen can consist of panels with open spaces between panel rails without too many problems.  However, in situations in which bison may experience greater stress, such as in smaller pens, chutes, and alleyways, their ability to reason breaks down and they can easily become overstimulated.  Over-stimulation of the senses results in a fight or flight response which is VERY dangerous for both the bison and people handling the bison.  Consequently, to reduce the a amount of visual stimulation in higher stress areas of the corral, I've added 1/16th inch thick sheets of steel to several of my 24-foot-long corral panels.  The following photographs show these panels. A sheeted panel.  The sheets are welded to the panel with one-inch-long welds every foot or two.  Even though the sheet is only 1/16th inch thick the 96 square feet needed to cover the panel adds around 240lbs to the 320lbs