Darting a bison with a Dan-Inject dart gun

On of the female bison in our herd developed symptoms of a copper deficiency, and, after many attempts over several weeks to get her to ingest copper supplement voluntarily, I called my veterinarian.  After a discussion of our options he agreed that I could try darting the female with a dose of a trace mineral injectable supplement called MultiMin 90. 


When it comes to my bison herd's health and well-being I don't like to leave anything up to chance.  For this reason, prior to darting the bison, I practiced extensively by shooting a water-filled dart at a 50 lbs bag of grass seed covered with an old pair of bib overalls (see above video).  I practiced shooting at 15, 20, and 30 feet until I could hit a grapefruit-sized target consistently from each distance.  The dart gun I was using is a Dan-Inject CO2 Dart Pistol, which makes virtually no noise when fired and is used for darting animals worldwide.

Unfortunately, I was so focused on not messing up when I actually did dart the bison that I forgot to film it.  Her reaction to the dart, however, was so surprisingly underwhelming that a video of the darting wouldn't have been worth posting anyway.  I drove up to the herd with the truck and, while they all stood around looking at me, shot the dart through the window of my truck into the female bison's shoulder.  She moved her head a little (probably more startled by the large dart flying through the air than anything else) and then continued watching me and chewing her cud with the dart in her shoulder.  I would have thought having a thick 1.5 inch long needle slammed into your shoulder would be enough to make most creatures at least notice the event, but I guess bison are not your average creature.

Hopefully this injection will give her the copper she needs until I can find an easier way to give her the copper she needs to stay healthy. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Front-end loader mounted t-post installer

Image
 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,
Read more

DIY cultipacker-roller

Image
For those of you who are unfamiliar with agricultural equipment, a cultipacker is an implement used to compress soil.  There are several reasons a farmer may use a cultipacker, but, for me, the primary purpose for the cultipacker is to pack down soil that has just been planted with grass seed.  This should greatly improve seed germination in newly planted bison pasture. Five truck tire rims welded together form the shape of the cultipacker.  Technically this is really more of a cultipacker-roller hybrid as the ridged portions on the roller should be more closely spaced on a true cultipacker.  A thick piece of steel tube runs through the center of the rims, which I'll explain later in this post. For added weight each tire rim was filled with concrete after it was welded in place.  A photograph of the roller portion of the cultipacker completed and waiting for the concrete to cure.  The length of steel tube that runs through the center of the roller is welded to the
Read more

Face fly nightmare

Image
Face flies beginning to appear a few days after my initial treatment with AiM-L VetCaps.  I unfortunately don't have any photos of the original mob of flies, which was much worse. Since the forth of July an insect called the face fly ( Musca autumnalis ) has plagued our ranch and caused me a considerable amount of stress.  It was a week ago, on the forth, while doing a routine check on the herd, that I noticed that the bison appeared to be greatly agitated by a surprisingly high number of the flies.  While the sight of flies or other small insects buzzing around grazing animals is nothing unusual, this was something different.  The flies flocked in groups around the eyes and nose of each animal so incessantly that the bisons' natural defenses appeared to be ineffective.  All the blinking, ear flapping, tail wagging, snorting, rolling in soil, and rubbing on trees had little effect.  No matter how many times they did these things the flies would just briefly fly up into the
Read more