Today we headed towards the Straight Arrow Bison Ranch in Broken Arrow, NE. We learned that bison are not like cattle at all and even God him self has said it, “And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind; and God saw that it was good”. At Mr. and Mrs. Bredthauer’s farm they told us that they have had their farm for about 30 years, and that they don’t keep the females and males apart since they breed year round. They use two different colored tags to know who’s who, yellow tags are for the females and blue tags are for the males.
Here is an example of a females and a male bison, you can also tell them apart from their horns so like the females horns curve inwards and the males go straight up.
They have 15 paddocks that the bison move around every 2
months for rotation of flys and so that way the grass has time to grow in each
area. The calves are born between the months of April/May/June and are orange
until they are about 2-2 ½ months of
age. They tag the calves every 2 years, and use humane harvest when they need
to down size the herd. They switch the bulls every 8-10 years so they have 25
herd cows, 2 bulls, and the calves which they would end up with about 80 head
before they do humane harvest. They don’t give the bison any vaccines or
medications but they do put apple cider vinegar in the water just in case.
They are beautiful animals!
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