Rotational Grazing of Organic Bison in Central Minnesota
2020 ж. 22 Сәу.
75 615 Рет қаралды
For the past eight years Ken Hess, his wife Lynnae, and two sons have been raising grass-fed organic bison on their 160 acre Horse Shoe Grove Bison Ranch in Kandiyohi County, MN. They use rotational grazing practices on 14 grass and cover crop paddocks. The Natural Resources Conservation Services (NRCS) has provided funding and expertise through EQIP (Environmental Quality Incentives Program). Videography by Dan Balluff.
For more information visit our Minnesota NRCS website at: www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/...
To view more Minnesota NRCS videos please visit: / @minnesotanrcs
Beautiful creatures, Beautiful story. The first bison I saw was when I was a little boy, my uncle managed a stock yard in Oskaloosa, Iowa, they had just received three railroad car loads and was mesmerized watching them by the way I am 89 now will never forget
The detail into the rotation and grasses... all of it was great!
Such a good video. The drawings of the paddocks and explanations of rotation, water system, everything. Very interesting.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Awesome upload! I will be using some facts from this video on my next video about bison. I'll make sure to give you credit!
I eat the grass-fed bison, and feel very good about it. I have tried to eat organic as much as possible. Bison is more tender than beef and has a better lipid profile, and I prefer the more mild flavor too. It is nice to know that it helps to maintain family farming too.
I love it when families thrive.
Thanks
Excellent work by the NRCS crew too
Nice to see, The roaming bison is what made the Midwest the rich agricultural meca is was, and their dried dung provided the settlers fire wood, as there were few trees..
Another can-do story. Great stuff.
Glad you enjoyed it
Beautiful animals.
Exciting!! I love the Bison 🦬 that visits during the Chili Open on Lake Minnetonka I'm Wayzata
Been buffalo for 500 years and we’re organic then and now.
Some people put chickens in the paddock when the big grazers leave.
3 days later and the fly larvae are about ready
@@downbntout Exactly
Great video thanks for sharing!
Thanks for watching!
This was a great video. Very detailed. I'm interested in cattle farming in South Africa. So I loved how very detailed this was. And how to use available resources. 🙌
Thank you
Brilliant story and really interesting, I've never seen Bison and had zero knowledge of their grazing habits etc. Many thanks
Thanks for kind words
Inspiring video and work. Thanks.
Thanks for watching!
Not a word mentioned about regenerative agriculture but that's what they're doing, with local government support, so regenerative agriculture has gone totally mainstream in the US and with central government encouragement it could be the dominant mode of practise for US agriculture sucking vast amounts of atmospheric CO2 into the soil as the soil comes back to life improving fertility and water retention while also resisting soil erosion, it's a no brainer must do solution that should be the policy for agriculture everywhere.
Requiring the practice of regenerative agriculture will have to come from consumers who refuse to accept anything less. Unfortunately, there are so few consumers with a conscience that we had to do it ourselves on our homestead. We don't raise bison, but our neighbor does. We raise chickens, ducks, and goats completely free-range, mostly for our own family. We aren't allowed to sell goat milk at all, but the neighbors will pilfer and leave behind packages of bison steak and roasts.
3:13 Wow, that's a big bull! I'm guessing that it's the 7 year old one.
Very inspiring!
Thanks!
Very interesting . Such a magnificent animal.
Thanks
God video I’m trying to learn more about this amazing animal thinking to start raising here in East Texas.
You need a lot of land to raise these guys like that. good stuff! 👏👏
Thanks!
Inspiring story
This will heal the land
What size bison herd and how many acres do you recommend to start? I've heard 12 head minimum and 50 acres. And do you think you could start by rendting vs owning the land?
This was an amazing video. Those are absolutely beautiful animals. They look very content. One of these days, I wanna go into this business.
I have one question for any bison operation before I consider buying from them: Do you round up the yearling bulls and sell them to feed lot operators? All the lush prairie scenes mean nothing if they do. Grass fed means nothing if the last months of the animal are spent penned up - up to their ankles in manure, being fed corn.
They get sold to buyers,ya wanna buy some,bison?
EXACTLY ! Grass finished is the term to look for, means were fed grass ONLY and not any grains right up to slaughtering.
Sherburn National Wildlife refuge is closed to people every summer. They bring in cattle during this time to graze different areas each year to represent Bison. Not sure why they don't just bring in actual bison? I assume it is safety for when people are in there. Yellowstone does it.
Great reporting..can I ask if and if so what do you Vax your bisons with
I am starting to study grass, so i can feed trees with constant grass as green manure
Look into Joel Salatin my friend. He has done amazing things with his pastures.
Check o ut Greg Judy's KZhead channel
Beautiful Organic Bison! I'm very interested in your story. Could you post a link to where I could read about Non Organic Bison to compare them with Organic Bison please?
At 2k lbs , they're eating 50 lbs a day. That's a lot of grass
Bison is better then beef to me, have eaten grass fed Buffalo. A bit pricey compared to beef , but after eating it I love it. Also it's so much healthier to eat then beef, but I still love a good aged steak.
Dig it!
I'd love to know of you buy hay, or if you just use your own hay?
and after he retired!
How did wild bison survive in the winters of the1800s & earlier without (human provided) hay?
Many didn't, and their land to graze was hundreds of times larger.
The hump is all muscle they snow plow with their heads too survive
Lets open up the great plains from canada to texas and bring back the great herds of buffalo,
Organic Bison? Like wild bison or you made them from other real bison?
interesting. it was a system that was messed up by the greed of people and wanting to rid we Natives. the bison was an intricate part of the ecosystem. they are slowly coming back. :)
Injuns got what they deserved.
and wildfires lit by the "natives" stretching for hundreds of miles to drive the prey over cliffs . . . should that come back as well? or the "native" practice of eating their enemies?
@@TheShootist look up what controlled fires are
Where Buffalo live birds use their hair for nesting. It's a circle the birds need to help them thrive, bison hair gives birds 30% better chance of egg hatching
Come here chicken chick chick chicchick
Muito bom pasto maravilhoso!!!se separarem 12 fêmeas com um macho,eles não perderam tempo brigando e todas as fêmeas serão cobertas,escolher regiões com pastos bons e sem plantações onde possam atacar,e colocar em todos os Estados unidos com grupos cuidando e preservando para que se precisarem terão e da forma que falei eles procriarão e vão pegando os filhotes melhores mais deixando alguns.criem formas deles não atacarem plantações,caçar todo javali,os ursos grandes começar a alimentar eles com frutas e mel,deixem as frutinhas que mais gostam em recipientes e comecem a plantar nos lugares onde vivem os teste e vejam quais mais gostam,quando for nascendo filhotes vão domesticando e acostumando com frutas,plantem muitos pés de frutas,onde vivem,os mais agressivos vendam para zoológicos bons que não maltratam seus animais,limpem pântanos, e item de rios e lagos jacarés e crocodilos todos criem fazendas e os coloque não deixe nenhum na natureza,povoem com peixes,descubram se os outros animais selvagens que possuem gostam de frutas,e comecem a ver quais isto, com linces,lobos,ou las,se descobrirem que gostam plantem essas arvores nos habitats dele mini arvores.cortem arvores que não dão frutos de suas calçadas vendam ou utilizem a madeira,plantem mini arvores frutíferas,ponham no soltao uma caixa d'água criatorio de peixes e se quiserem no porão também.onde teve aparecimento de caranguejo ferradura,plantem bastante neste lugar,reforcem a segurança ,tenham alimentos armazenados.
Organic Bison ??? What are your inorganic bison made from??
It is probably linked to the organic feed they receive I would guess.
Organic as in not injected with chemicals or hormones.
@@peterjarnes25 Just taking a jibe at the silly term organic. After all fruit, vegetables or animals are made from recycled cars or any other inorganics. In New Zealand none of our cows or beef animals are fortified with hormones so we're all "organic". Of course we do use chemical fertilisers which is a good use of fossil fuel and mineral deposits.
@@tamaking7104 Trippin’.
@@tamaking7104 natural mineral and stone amendments are organic, petrochemicals are not
run those chickens through the paddocks after the bison, then bring in goats. rinse repeat
Are they raising them for meat ?
Mostly, yes
Our wonderful government allows meat to be advertised as "grass fed" on beef that has spent the majority of its life in CAFOs. The cow ate grass for a very short time then consumed corn for its short life before it was ready to die from acidosis, yummy. This gentleman doesnt have to get certified by anybody and pay their stupid fees. Go to his ranch/farm and its obvious he has to keep the animals much longer since they eat natural food and not pure carbs which will kill a ruminant. I buy a beef from a central-Oregon company that raises their animals the same way, it costs more but so what, and not that much more. Most people dont care though which is why they support the processed food companies and eat poison their whole lives. Have a nice day.
Man, he keeps his animals in the pasture too long. A herd size that big, you need to be rotating them twice a day if possible, that way you leave more trampled grass out there, rather than almost grazing it down to bare soil. It’s either that or come the winter months, you’ll have to buy a ton of Hay just to keep your animals fed. Bison are made to move anyway, so the more you can move them, the better results you’ll see with the Land. I’m not a know it all, nor do I claim to be, I just had to put in my two cents.
Yeah he is just a hobby farmer. But he is doing a better job than I am at raising bison. How's your herd coming along?
wow how heartwarming. the multi billion petrochemical industry and the pharmaceutical ones too hates your way of doing things, if this trend takes hold they will lose billions. well peo
Can we come up with a longer title, I can only understand complicated: more words with lots of letters please. Ok I've complained enough, I do love to see bison period. Thanks for the vid.
Just watch it five or six times. Google the words or terms that you don’t understand. You’ll get there.
There is no such word as organic.
No,you are mistaken. There indeed is a word organic,you used it in your awesomely cromulent comment.
rubber tire water....? blecchh
The bison don’t mind it
They are not a _wild animal_ if you have them penned up and selectively breed them for food. That's the very definition of a domesticated animal.
they do not have the temperament of domestic breeds that humans have kept and selectively bred for 10k years.
There has never been a North American wild animal successfully domesticated. I can walk through a local pasture filled with a herd of domesticated dairy cows. I can NEVER walk through a herd of bison, even if there is no bull. The herd instincts of bison are too strong. I'll check back with you in 10,000 years to see if they are truly domesticated.
I would hate to be grazed by an inorganic bison.
There are no _inorganic_ bison.
Eating gmo corn from petrochemically fertilized farms ,would that be organic bison
I wouldn't pay two cents for anything organic and I'd druther eat beef I've tried buffalo a half a dozen times and I'm not impressed with it just don't care for the flavor of it
Organic bison????? Are there inorganic bison, like robots.
christ. all bison are organic. all life is organic.
is plastic organic?
@@Anthony-hu3rj red herring or strawman?
Organic farming has been around for a hundred years, because farmers in Germany found their yields decreasing. They went to see Rudolph Steiner. He told them to stop using chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. He also told them many other things to do . He wrote a couple books on agriculture. This was in the 1920’s. When farmers don’t use chemical pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers, it’s called… wait for it… ORGANIC FARMING (or ranching). Geez, where have you been man, try to keep up!
@@Anthony-hu3rj the question "is plastic organic" is a red herring, yes. plastic isn't life
As opposed to "inorganic bison" which would be made of...aluminum, I guess?
Pesticides in the feed
@@darthdaddy6983 Those are organic too, for the most part. Lots of carbon rings and aromatics. The organophosphate groups can get all sorts of messy, however.