Finishing Rations for Bison - May 2003

Dear Gerald:

Is there any literature on the  makeup of various finishing rations, the amount per day fed, and how they  performed? Also are there any articles on finishing bison heifers?   I found they put on too much fat on the same ration that seemed fine for  bulls.

Dennis

Answer:

Dennis:

Yes, there is some information on bison finishing rations on our website in our Resource Library. Go to www.bisoncentre.com. Go to the Resource library
and select Production Information for the Established Producer. There is a section about feeding bison. Several articles deal with finishing bison. Also, go to the section called Bison Research for Academic Interest an view the Nutritional Research section. Again there are several articles that deal with finishing bison. The article called Practical Lessons in Feeding Bison compares different rations. The research was done in the USA so they used feeds that aren't familiar to us but it does give comparisons.

Another website to visit is the North Dakota State University website at:
They have some articles about finishing bison as well.

I don't know of any articles that talk about finishing heifers. The Peace Country Bison Assoc. is currently doing some research into heifer feeding but they won't have any data yet.

Gerald Hauer
Bison Production Specialist