IRVINE, Alta. – A better-than-average return and the excitement of doing something new attracts people to the bison business.
The Alberta Bison Association has 452 members and is growing across the province.
For seasoned cattle producers like Bob, Rick and Lee Porter at Irvine, it made sense to bring the buffalo back to the range five years ago. Profits are higher and inputs are lower than cattle because the buffalo graze the native range.
“You can raise three buffalo where you ran two cows before,” said Rick Porter. He and his family are members of the newly formed Chinook Country Bison Producers, which has about 30 members in southeastern Alberta.
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The catch in this business is learning to work on the bison’s schedule. The Porters have specially designed handling facilities in one corner of the pasture that include a circular set of corrals and a buffalo chute.
They prefer to handle the animals no more than once a year, when calves get vaccinated with seven-way, treated with Ivomec and heifers get dehorned.
Sell to others
Part of their business includes selling breeding stock derived from a herd that came from the United States.
Intact bulls are sold for slaughter for about $2,000 each at 18 to 30 months of age. Bison have an average daily gain of 1.8 pounds per day and are fed out on grain and grass hay for roughage. They don’t like alfalfa.
Genetic selection is happening slowly. At one time there were millions of bison roaming the North American plains. By the time the Porter family settled the area in the 1880s, there were about 500 left.
“And they weren’t likely the best 500,” said Bob Porter.
Cream of the crop
Rebuilding the herds takes time and selection for meat and growth has to be done carefully.
“We don’t want to turn them into cattle that are hard to manage,” said Rick.
So far, the Porters have noticed feet and udders hold up well on the females and they drop 50-pound calves without assistance.
On the meat side, some Canadians ship animals for slaughter to the North American Bison Co-op in North Dakota. They also use Bouvry’s Meats at Fort Macleod and local provincially inspected plants.
The marketing is a full-time job but as the meat gains popularity, the job gets easier.
“Four or five years ago you had to market all the meat out of your freezer,” said Rick.
About two-thirds of the meat is exported to Europe where it is popular in Germany and France as a healthy, low-fat product with plenty of western history.
For Norm and Diane MacKenzie, owners of Bearded Ladies Bison at Foremost, bison pay the bills.
Diane was vice-principal of an elementary school in Winnipeg before she followed her husband Norm to Foremost. Five years later she is vice-president of the Alberta Bison Association and is keen to promote the meat and breeding animals.
Part of the promotion is handled by the animals themselves: “People know what buffalo are.”
She wants to educate consumers about the nutrition in this low cholesterol, low fat meat. Some good news for the association is the inclusion of bison cookery at the chefs’ schools at the Southern and Northern Institutes of Technology.
“The value of the meat is where we’ll make our money,” said Diane.
The association also wants to educate breeders to make sure they offer a consistent, quality product to the market. A grading system has been set up and people need to learn to send only the young, quality animals into it, rather than 20-year-old animals.
