What happens when a Bull gets in with the Bison Bulls? | Behind the scenes of Kremer Buffalo

all right guys so something that a lot of you probably have started to pick up on is that some of these managers of State lands when it comes to grazing animals are also ranchers themselves they make some of the best range land managers so uh we're going to go today to visit Chad Kramer's private herd Kramer Buffalo and it's right outside the park here in fact sometimes tourists get his bison confused with the park Bice because they're literally across the fence line from each other but this is a private herd and it's uh it's Chad's private private Enterprise [Music] so you can either jump in with me or I mean you'd be all right in this to get out but they're about a mile up north here and stuff all right we could we could follow just follow okay yeah that way we got let me grab a couple buckets of Cubes or a bucket of cubes and then uh yeah we'll just go up this section n Trail here stuff so all right okay sounds good right now the last few years I've pulled my bows so I got my bows out in this pasture but cowels are all up north here but we'll go up there first [Music] okay um Chad Kramer uh owner of Kramer Buffalo Company uh been raising bison for just over 30 years now um looked into it couple of years before I finally took the plunge and and bought some animals but I've been a native of Southwest Minnesota grew up on a corn and soybean Farm there and we raised some beef cattle uh finishing and then also some Hogs but was always more involved in the livestock end of it but once I got interested in bison in college and that uh quickly intrigued me and very quick became my passion it led me uh I like to say down the Buffalo Trail I guess and ended up managing an operation in Central South Dakota for a few years then went to Central Colorado for about a year and a half and then ended up back here in Western South Dakota in the Black Hills we can leave this one open told Charlie that after all of this trekking around I'm going to have to do just a a fun reel of people opening and closing Gates how many times people have to go through their Gates when I moved West uh to Central South Dakota there it's like you realize pretty quick it's like gates are a fact of life if you're going to be in this so if you don't want to deal with them you better make a change so our operation is primarily cow calf um we lease we operate on all lease ground so I have two major leases um and then a couple other smaller smaller acreages but it's all contiguous and total about 1,800 acres and we'll run between 100 to 140 animal units um per season depending on precipitation and forage conditions and such but um so primarily cow calf selling calves every year but I do continue and uh I direct Market about 15 to 20 carcasses a year so um mostly local few of them I ship to folks friends of friends that have found us over the years um I field harvest my animals now I've been doing that for over 10 years so I do a couple at a time and work with the local processor basically doing the same the Proto protol that's out there for for USDA or state inspected field Harvest so but I feel that field harvesting in my experience over the years is the least stressful way to to harvest that animal there's there's no stress of capturing them loading them hauling them um unloading at the processing facility and such it's I tell people uh when I get into discussions with them about it and how I do it I said you know I more than 50% of the time time when I walk up to that animal it's got that last bite of grass clenched in its teeth and give thanks for for what it's it's providing for us and and then uh you bleed it and and away we go and and get it loaded and get it to the processor so um it's just I found that's in my opinion the best method to do it but yeah it's uh I graze year round we don't supplemental feed as far as uh supplemental hay and stuff I do use some dehydrated Al Alpha cubes for occasionally and that's just for ease of what I like to say habituating them for moving them different paddocks and stuff but we have about uh 8 to 10 different paddocks right now that we we rotationally GA through through over the course of the season um a couple of times through those and and yeah um I'm also the herd manager at kuster Park and so a lot of what I've learned learned in the last 20 plus th's year I've tried to apply to my own operation on a smaller scale in my mind what it basically boils down to is you know we over 150 years ago we didn't have fences now we have you know private property and we have fences so they they have to be managed and that doesn't matter what size it is whether it's 10 acres or if it's you know a million Acres like Yellowstone is out there the fact is is that there is a boundary whether it has a fence on it or not when they cross that boundary and they're on somebody else's property that doesn't want them there then you have you have a concern so you know it would be great to to go back to that and see those um Visions from over 150 years ago but the fact is today is is uh doesn't matter on what scale it is it's going to be pretty tough to do that so I guess the way I look at it is how do I as a steward how do I manage this animal whether it's a 50 acre property in the eastern part of the us or you get out um in the western part here where you know you're looking at tens of thousands of of acres and so you know there's there's a lot of different ways to manage them but in my mind what it boils down to is you're going to have to manage them to a certain level and individually you need to decide what that level's going to be for myself personally it's it's not something I want to ramp up to a lot larger scale for myself so so I we've kept the bull Henry with all the cows last 3 years but cats can get yeah I had him we had him in the crow for about 6 weeks cuz Susie wouldn't let me put him out here with these guys she's like no they'll kill him I said he's got 320 Acres if he can't get away but he thinks he's pretty big [Music] stuff [Music] I don't have nothing mofy no no no sh go on sh go [Music] he [Music] [Music] hey hey hey hey hey [Music] he

Channel: Yanasa TV

Views: 139,307

Keywords: Bison, Buffalo, Kremer Buffalo, Chad Kremer, Bison Rancher, Buffalo Rancher, South Dakota

Id: Jslfk4HF6WU

Length: 10min 25sec (625 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 21 2024