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Story time… I’ve talked a little about my childhood and some of the animals we had when I was a kid. I grew up with cows, but in a hobby farm sort of way. We usually had 5–10 cows at a time, and we never had handling facilities. Dad just had them so tame he could lead them wherever they needed to go.
When I was about 12, someone gave my dad a herd of bison. They were on a farm that had been sold, and they had to be gone by a certain date. We didn’t have proper fencing, knew very little about raising bison, and had no way to properly handle them. But Dad has always loved history, and knowing bison once roamed the Appalachian Mountains, there was no way he was turning down a free herd of bison.
Because Dad’s cows were so tame, we had basically no experience loading cattle that didn’t want to be loaded. I’m still not sure if someone was playing a prank on us or actually believed this would work, but we were told to get a long rope, have one person hold each end, and walk behind the bison. Supposedly they would just walk right onto the trailer. 😂 Knowing what I know now, I know that wouldn’t even work with my tame cows today.
Well, we tried it with the bison. They were NOT tame. If you’ve ever seen those videos of tourists in Yellowstone getting charged by bison, that’s pretty much what happened. I remember my dad and Uncle Fritz running for their lives and diving under the fence to keep from getting killed.
The calves were so wild that when we finally got them in the barn, they ran circles around it and would literally go airborne running up the walls. We eventually managed to get the weaned calves out, and those were the ones we kept for a while.
The bull was another story. He had to be off that farm by the deadline, and no matter what we tried, we could not safely get him loaded. Eventually we ran out of time, so Dad had to kill him and he was butchered right there on the farm.
I also loved to read, and I was fascinated by stories about the Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains and their relationship with the land and the bison. It’s funny looking back because at 12, other girls were starting to get interested in makeup and fashion, and I just wanted to learn how to process a bison. 😂 I remember thinking that hunting a bison and actually using the animal for food and other necessities would be an incredible experience. Of course, when it actually came down to killing one, I didn’t have the heart to do it and Dad had to, but getting to be there and help process one was something I’ll never forget.
That was actually the first and only time I’ve watched a bovine be killed and processed from beginning to end. Looking back, it’s kind of neat that my first experience with that was a bison, butchered right there on the land where he had been living. For most of human history, people had a much closer connection to the animals they ate. You knew exactly where your food came from because you were part of the process.
Being around the bison in Custer this week brought all of those memories back. I hadn’t thought about that part of my childhood in years, but standing there watching them again reminded me just how unusual it was that I got to have that experience growing up in the mountains of North Carolina.
(And yes, this is a real photo of a few of our bison.)
