MIAMI, Man. – With different management, the cost of producing bison could be lower than beef, says one of the original Canadian farmers in the business.
Bill Lenton said bison run about double the cost of cattle production.
But by setting up large operations on marginal northern land, producers could make better use of the bison’s natural advantages.
The “phenomenal hair count” of bison keep the warmth and the cold winds and snow out. Unlike cattle, they don’t drift or pile up in storms, Lenton said.
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“I bought a Simmental bull one time, and I was going to cross breed some heifers, and I got lucky. Lightning killed the bull,” he said.
It was a cold January day, and the bull was eating 22 hours a day, he said, costing too much money in feed.
Fend for themselves
But bison will root like hogs through blankets of snow to find feed, and they don’t need heavy grain rations.
Given a choice between dairy quality alfalfa and rough hay, they’ll eat the roughage almost every time.
“I really don’t think that we use 30 percent of the available roughage in a 40-mile radius of here,” said Lenton, listing chaff, straw and grasses along road allowances and fence lines.
Farmers in the area call him when they have problems with kochia in their fields and he often mows it and buys it for feed. He said the weed has 22 percent protein.
Eventually, he hopes Canadian feed companies will make the kind of “cake” their American counterparts sell to bison producers.
They bind barley, oats, screenings and trace minerals with tallow to make large, hard, shiny pellets.
The cake withstands the weather and is easy to spread around a field, since unlike cattle, bison don’t eat well in clustered groups.
Selective breeding has brought bison a long way in a short time, Lenton said.
He looks for animals with “stretch” and long, protruding hips for easy birthing.
“Three inches on the loin and a couple inches on the inside round, that’s money,” he said.
In 28 years of calving, he has only pulled one calf. Pinkeye, foot-rot and cancer are rare problems. Parasites can be a little more common.
Lenton owns a 31-year-old cow who is still calving. Bison producers are also starting to keep bulls longer, he said.
They used to breed with two-year-olds, then feed them and sell them for meat.
“But we were shooting ourselves in the foot, because we ran out of blood,” he said, explaining the industry is trying to broaden its genetic pool.
Lenton said there’s no perfect way to raise bison, and he has learned a lot from trial, error and debate.
“Controversy makes progress, so we’re winning that way.”
