The first thing you need to know is that bison do not like being called buffalo. Buffalo are their Asian and African cousins, Bison are all American.
When the call went out for volunteers to herd bison I was all in. Who wouldn't want to be part of the traditional western scene of herding animals across the prairie? At 10am I was standing with a small group of other people who were also looking for fun and adventure in the old west. This being the 20th century our first task was to sign a liability disclaimer agreeing that if we got maimed or killed it was our own damn fault. Then we got the safety lecture. Regrettably there were no donuts in sight.
The plan was to herd the bison into a corral using quads, atvs, and our trucks. The trucks would form a moving conga line parallel to the fence and the quads would keep any strays from getting away. The modern quarter horse.
As you might guess nobody briefed the bison on the plan and as we tried to move them to the southwest corner of the field they decided they liked the northeast corner better. Cutting across open ground in the Blazer at 45 mph while chasing very large animals is pretty exciting!
Once we got lined up again we were able to minimize the chaos and move the herd into the corral. This led to the second part of the day which consisted of weighing, immunizing, and tagging them.
They are moved from the corral into a long corridor of heavy steel bars. The calves weigh ~300 pounds and the bulls are ~2000 pounds. None of them are especially pleased about the whole process and continually expressed that opinion by kicking, ramming the steel cage, and making loud, angry noises.
My job was to wait until the animal came down the chute and pull a lever that put a collar around its neck so as to immobilize it while the inspection and immunizing took place.
Standing 6” away from a pissed off bison that weighs nearly as much as my truck got me to wondering about how good the welder was who put this all together. Luckily they seemed to be up to the task.
One by one the animals went through the line and when I released the collar they were only to happy to bolt from the chute, out through the gate, and back into the field where they came from. Home, Home on the Range.
It was a great experience on a warm sunny day. The owners told us we did a great job and we all said we would be back again next year for another roundup.
Then the donuts came out and my day was complete!
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