Acclimating Animals to New Environments

Billy Salada, Ranch Manager

Standing Butte Ranch

Fort Pierre, South Dakota

Standing Butte Ranch is a 45,000 acre grass ranch located in central South Dakota near Fort Pierre.  We are the yearling heifer finishing operation for several Turner Ranches.  Our emphasis is growing grass and using bison to help manage it through well thought out grazing rotations.

We are a unique Turner Ranch in the fact that we receive 2,000 or more bison heifers every spring from various Turner Ranches throughout the western United States.  These bison heifers arrive from different environments and management protocols that they are accustomed to at their home ranch.  When these bison arrive at our ranch, we realize they are completely unfamiliar with our ranch, environment and forages. Our challenge is  acclimating these heifers to their new environment so they will grow into prime feeders to go into our feed yard or be sold directly off grass into the Grass Finished Bison market.      

The prime product starts long before the bison arrive at Standing Butte.  All Turner Ranches utilize Low-Stress Livestock Handling which is a great help to our operation.  This will be the one constant when they arrive without their mother cow or familiar herd.  In addition, we have narrowed down a very successful protocol that starts the minute they are unloaded from the trucks. 

We begin receiving in February and it can last through May.  When the truck arrives, the bison are unloaded into our corrals where they remain for at least two days.  They will be introduced to free choice hay, alfalfa, alfalfa cake (in bunks), and mineral.  We spend time each day on foot in the corrals to get them used to our presence.  The next step is to move them to a small pasture of about 200 acres near the corrals.  They will continue to have access to the same feed they received in the corrals.  We only feed alfalfa cake with our cake truck.  Since the area is larger, it is time to introduce them to the tools we need to use over the next two years.  This means moving around the pasture on foot, horseback, UTV’s, and the cake truck.  We do this with an emphasis on slow movement and really take our time to read the animals.  The alfalfa cake is used as a training tool and will be given from a cake truck.  After about seven days, they will be introduced to larger pastures where they will begin grazing.  By now, the next group of animals will arrive and we start the process again with the new arrivals.

Generally speaking, the initial process takes nine days and is by far the most important thing we can do to acclimate the bison to the ranch where they will grow out into feeders or be marketed directly off grass.  But, it is totally dependent on their response to us.  If needed, we will extend early acclimation time until they are settled and doing well.  Our work is not finished.  These heifers have no idea where gates and water are without the guidance of experienced mother cows, so we find it very important to continue to interact with them on a regular basis.  These animals will pass through our works area (on average) five times.  The more effort we put in ahead of working them in the corral, the more effectively we can process the animals and get them back out to pasture.  Trying to process animals this many times a year is no small task.  If we have not done the upfront work in acclimation settling the animals down, this can be nearly impossible.  We have proven to ourselves that our arrival and acclimation protocols are the right tool for our operation.

We have found these steps to be critical to a successful outcome in growing out heifers on grass.  A significant amount of time and effort is put into this, but the rewards far outweigh the costs.  If you take the time to understand the needs of your animals and have a little patience I am sure you too can see the results we have.