VERMILION, Alta. – For John Dorey it was love at first bite.
During a hunting trip with a cousin, the north eastern Alberta grain farmer ate a buffalo meat sandwich. It tasted so good he bought a herd of bison.
“I liked the meat and the animals,” said Dorey, who at the time was searching for farm diversification after the end of the Crow freight rate.
The low maintenance animals meshed with his grain farm and oilfield road plowing business.
“It was something we were able to diversify into without creating more of a workload,” said Joanne Dorey of Irish Creek Bison.
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The bison cows calve after the busy spring seeding season and the hardy animals need little care during the Doreys’ busy winter snowplowing season.
After 18 years, the original herd of 20 animals has expanded to more than 200 and the bison are still an integral part of the farm north of Vermilion. If it weren’t for the niggling worry about lack of rain, the couple would expand their herd even more.
“If we weren’t so scared of droughts we’d upscale,” said John.
In 2001, their farm ran out of feed after a drought devastated much of the Prairies. Truckloads of hay were shipped from Ontario and truckloads of animals were shipped off prairie farms.
The Doreys shipped three loads of bison to Fort St. John, B.C., an area relatively untouched by the feed shortage. A drought in the Peace River area the following year sent the animals back home.
In the past two years their area has only received about two-thirds its normal rainfall. While their farm receives good winter snow for spring moisture, there is a continued worry about in-season moisture.
“It would be easy to expand, but in the back of your head you’d be worrying if there was enough feed and you can’t keep up,” said Joanne.
Despite the concerns about weather, the family believes bison have a solid future. There seems to be a growing demand for the meat and not enough bison producers to keep up with the demand. John credits American media mogul Ted Turner as key to promoting bison through his chain of Ted’s Montana Grill restaurants.
“Everyone who goes there has a good experience and that has helped,” he said.
The Doreys sell a few animals to locals for meat, but most of their animals are shipped to buyers in the United States for slaughter.
“We’re more into trailer load sales,” said Joanne.
The slaughter bulls and heifers are fed a combination of free choice hay and free choice pulse pellets from Saskatchewan. Joanne said they may be able to save a little money feeding daily, but they like the flexibility the free choice feeding gives them. They’re able to continue with their other farm work or travel with their four children ranging in age from 16 to 24.
In the beginning, their children were an important part of the bison business, especially when they travelled to bison shows in Canada and the United States, showing off their herd. The children are still involved with the bison and are often pressed into service to help wean the animals when they come home for Christmas holidays.
Joanne said the shows were a good chance to see how their animals stacked up against other herds.
“Showing has given us exposure of what your stock is like,” said Joanne.
John said he tried to listen to the judges and their comments and make improvements to the herd.
“It was a good learning experience,” he said.
After the discovery of BSE closed the American border to Canadian cattle and bison, the family stopped travelling to promote their herd. Their time at the shows still has a ripple effect however, with sales of breeding bull to people who saw their animals at the shows.
The main herd is Wood bison, but the Doreys do cross the animals with Plains bison to produce an easy finishing animal.
“We find it gives the heifers more frame and it’s easier to get them to the weight buyers want them at,” said Joanne.
“We like the cross calves.”
Because bison have a long reproductive life and some of the bison cows are almost 20 years old, few of the heifers are needed for replacements so most are shipped for slaughter.
The rest of the bull and heifer calves are sold as slaughter animals between 20 to 24 months, many to the U.S. During the winter, the main cow herd winters on land seeded to barley and oats cut into swaths for winter grazing. It’s just one more way the family has been able to reduce its winter workload.
