You are listening to "Kawliga"
by Hank Williams
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When Bill first moved
to the ranch, he started a buffalo raising business to bred and market the meat. A few years back the market dropped
dramatically and a lot of people went out of the
business. So Bill just sold a bunch off and kept what he wanted for
his own personal meat. We currently only have 18 head. 9 cows, a 3yr old
bull and two year olds and yearlings.
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We don't
really do much with our buffalo. They are truly wild animals. We don't handle them much because the
are so hard to work. We worm and vaccinate once a year in the fall and we
usually cull the ones we are going to eat at that time. If we have any of
size and some one wants to purchase one we will usually sell it. Normally
when someone buys a buffalo they come out and shoot it on the ranch and skin
and gut it out here then we load it onto their truck and off it goes to the
butcher. People rarely have the means to transport a buffalo so that is why
they do it that way.
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The buffalo are so different
from cattle. They
have to be trained to be worked. Cutting horse trainers love them because
they don't need to rotate as often and they are so hardy they rarely get
sick. They are quick on their feet and challenge the horses better then
cattle do. But you have to have the proper faculties for them or else you got
problems. If a buffalo can see daylight through a fence he will chance it.
We have 10 strain barb wire fence and they can go through that if they
really wanted too. So we don't work our horses on the buffalo but they are
exposed to them. We ride the fences and allow the horses to become use to
the strange creatures that they are. They are fun to look at, but at times it would be nice if we had cattle instead.
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