Eleanor Surprised Us! The Other Side of Ranching...

so I know a lot of people have been worried about Eleanor and asking about Eleanor you know how she's doing where's she at what's her plans what's what's the future with Eleanor well we don't know what we're going to do with her we've got some things we've been talking about Marissa and I but on the other side of ranching farming you know you have to make some money and some income and as a first generation bison Rancher uh we're learning how to do that hey guys Dusty Baker costumes bison welcome back to the channel we're at the OG the original Place mom and Kevin's where it all started for us there's one bison left to work and we've gone through a lot of challenges here recently if you've been watching Marissa and I have with Dunbar Haas and all of them Big Joe but there's one more the sweetest the most loving the most interesting of them all Eleanor we've got to catch Eleanor but first I gotta find her and then get her up here so hope you guys are ready for some Boston ranching Cole if you stand right there I'll open the gate and let her come in here okay stay on the outside back there yeah but yeah because she may not come in here [Applause] foreign [Music] hey girl come on Eleanor come on we got lucky [Applause] well we got Eleanor Eleanor caught I totally forgot that we hadn't even worked her I mean she's healthy she's fine she's pregnant huh she's pregnant yeah I think so yeah she's four hey girl she's healthy got a scab on her what you did it yeah she showed up I don't know sometimes you just get lucky I guess so we just showed up out here and couldn't even see Eleanor um she's been over here since we worked the Bison Eleanor we couldn't catch her we always have trouble catching Eleanor just because she keeps her distance from the herd basically because she can't get in tight spaces and so if it gets crowded she doesn't like being in there because she's on the bottom of the totem pole she gets pushed around so she doesn't put herself in those situations so when we go to catch the Bison for our fall or spring handling roundups she doesn't come up until they've been worked so we've managed it because she is special and unique so we haven't been able to catch we've been busy moving Dunbar and whatnot and been wanting to catch her so we could work her get her vaccinated and stuff but uh I went out I couldn't even find her because the grass is so tall because we don't have as many bison out there where she's roaming and I couldn't even see her I had to walk around and get on top of a fence to actually even sear and finally stood up well I came up here I was talking to Cole and Lauren and I'm like I don't know if we'll ever get her up here because Kevin allows her to come up here sometimes and has been feeding her because we've been trying to catch her and sure enough she stood in the lane we got some feed and there she was and uh this is like the best she's looked in a long time she has all this pasture ground now basically by herself for a golly over a month a month and a half now and uh she's doing good she's all healthy looks pregnant now we gotta get her worked and yeah I don't know it's just Eleanor you never know what you're gonna get with her so the fact that you just bribed her with a little bit of feeding she came up here and came straight up to the feed and that was it it's the easiest bison catching you could do don't take notes from us because that was way too easy so I know a lot of people have been worried about Eleanor and asking about Eleanor you know how she's doing where's she at what's her plans what's what's the future with Eleanor well she's been a good company over here at the OG with Mom and Kevin she's got got a couple of new friends got some of Kevin's roosters that hang out here around the place and we've got some of our feeder bulls that we use in our programs that are over here her son her very first born calf is actually next to her that's what we call Eleanor's bull he's three years old now so she's been in a good hands she's locking all the attention from from all the Bulls that we have over here so it's uh it's always good to be around Eleanor and luckily she came up here to visit and got her some feed she looks really good so she's been in good hands so we don't know what we're gonna do with her we've got some things we've been talking about Marissa and I but you know she just needs to be with her family so we'll see what we're going to do with her but the most important part is while we're here is to catch her so that we can get her work to get her vaccinated she looks really healthy right now she's doing good but she didn't get her vaccinations because we had to work the other animals and couldn't get her so now it's time to really get those vaccinations in her one of the things what she needs is what I don't mean by vaccinations I should actually back up a little bit and not say vaccinations what I really should say is the dewormer that's really all we use for these adults is a dewormer that's really it and they just get that one shot and then move on calves get more shots than that just because they're first time shots but really when I say vaccinations I shouldn't say that it's actually I just should say the dewormer to try to keep there you go to try to keep the parasite load down so that's why uh that's why we have to do it we do it once in the fall and once in the spring so something that we don't talk about very much we have a conservation herd we have a foundation heard and all those animals are at the Ponderosa and you know what I've been going through lately Marissa and uh moving some of those animals over there like Dunbar and getting him sorted in his new herd so we've got our conservation our foundation heard there but that is that Ponderosa is primarily focused on breeding and I know we we hang out with those animals a lot more and we talk about those animals a lot more but on the other side of ranching farming you know you you have to make some money and some income and as a first generation bison Rancher uh we're learning how to do that and you how to evolve over time and it takes four or five years before you can ever make any profit off of bison in general because we've got Bulls out here and the prime time to process a bull is from two to three years old and the most important part of that is the weight you know every producer is different but you probably want that bull to weigh anywhere from 1100 to 1400 pounds some some guys do it when they're a little bit bigger but for the Primal weights for steaks and stuff it's that two to three year old age and so what we got here is we have some of those animals here and these bowls are used for that they're used for the meat side of things and that's the whole other business side of it and you know this is this is what helps pays the bills this is what helps promote bison and if you've never had bison you can eventually order meat directly from us right from our website and then it's shipped to your door when we do have it in stock because we're such a young bison operation you know it takes time money and steps to get to this point where you're finally processing these animals you're processing for meat and we have the jerkies and we have the sticks but it takes time to do all that and part of the processing side of it is you've got to have bulls and here's the thing about bulls is people always say why don't you castrate bison and you don't have to castrate them because at two years old you kind of have to make a decision with these Bulls you either can use them for breeding because they're able to breed at the age of two or are we going to use them for processing and so you've kind of skipped that whole castration like you would a steer essentially so these Bulls are anywhere from two to three years old and we don't have very many right now but these guys are part of our program they're an investment you know and just like our conservation herd our foundation heard at the Ponderosa with Big Joe Dunbar and Haas those guys none of those animals will be going through processing so that's a little bit of kind of behind the scenes of how we do it and I would say that 99 of Bison Ranchers do this as well they may not process very many of us in a year but they're processing one or two at least I would say some are doing it just for processing and that's okay because it's a great meet it's high in protein low in cholesterol low in fat and it's just it's a good meat you know a lot of people wonder why bison is a little bit more expensive than cattle or well bison is more expensive than beef and it goes back to that age you can process a steer at you know a year or a year and a half age and it's going to take a bull to get to that Primal weight at two to two and a half years so the longer the time the effort that bison have to get to that point you know that's time and money yeah absolutely you're fencing your your equipment your operation of working those animals and things like that it's a lot of money and it's a little bit more investment sometimes than cattle so all that's included kind of in that premium meat and then it's just a it's a lean meat and there's not very it's not asthma much of it as beef and so that's why a bison is just a little bit more expensive and so one of the healthiest meats you can get your hands on here in America so get a little stormy but anyways Eleanor's her bull is going to be going to Indiana actually so got some folks from Indiana that's going to come get him and we're excited about that as well so he's much bigger than she is but his dad is Dunbar so it's fun to kind of see one of the first processes that's her first baby and as big as she is we were kind of curious what was going to happen to her bull or her calves how big are they going to be and he's he's a I don't know he's probably 1200 pounds right now so he's growing and growing so that is a product of Dunbar and Eleanor you've got Bulls like Eleanor's bull that we're not raising them just for meat and you know there's a whole breeding side to this thing which is our foundation herd our conservation herd you know Eleanor's bull we thought he was such a good bull we put him out there to sell and you know somebody liked him and wanted him so we sold him and he's gonna go be used somewhere else as a breed bowl and you know dunbar's genetics get to live on basically through uh that bull and so we're on that side too we're trying to produce a really good genetically awesome animal and that's through good breeding and that's through good genetics and care and management of these animals so looks like we're about to get rained on what do you think

Channel: Cross Timbers Bison

Views: 149,587

Keywords: bison, americanbison, buffalo, farming, ranching, babybison, oklahoma, oklahomabison, farm, ranch, agriculture, western, wild, animals, calf, wildanimals, big joe, Dunbar

Id: _ui2UyYm3xo

Length: 13min 56sec (836 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 29 2023