Introduction

The Triple Seven Ranch (777) is a 25,000+ acre ranch owned by the Ray Hillenbrand family since the ear1y 70's Ray is the general manager and Margaret Hillenbrand, a daughter and current owner, is a Wildlife biologist and carries out those activities of management along with general ranch work. The other key person is Scott Lammers who coordinates day-to-day actions on the ranch. Lammers Operations, which I own, is in a joint venture with the Hillenbrand family in ownership of the herd and maintains operations of the 777 Ranch and herd.

General Ranch Operation

The ranch has 2000+ total buffalo including breeding bulls, cows and replacements along with annual calf crop and grass backgrounded yearling bu11s.  We market breeding stock and feeder bulls and finished bulls along with cull females for the meat stock.

E Bison and Prairie Edge are sister companies that market various wholesale and retail products including robes, skulls, leather and leather products, hair and down products from those, film shoots for features, television and documentary productions, along with advertising and stock footage.

The buffalo herd is grazed in pastures averaging 2100 acres on a year round basis and is run as a single herd.  We supplement winter grazing in a typical year with 250 pounds of hay and 200 pounds of cake per animal and provide mineral blocks free choice year round.

We have used Holistic Resource Management on the ranch for the past 18 years which includes a method of short duration grazing, with the time in each of 12 pastures typically 4-8 days most of the year.  This method his helped us greatly improve plant and animal life and increased production from the ranch and buffalo herd. We have received recognition from several state and federal agencies for our management.

Since we move our herd often we have tried many methods including leading them with cake, opening gates to allow them to move out on their own, and herding them with horses and ATVs.  The best is herding, not chasing, typically with 2 or 3 people on ATVs in early morning or evening when our herd is naturally on the move. Either Margaret or myself sometimes do this alone. In fact I have moved the whole herd by myself on foot once, just to see if I could do it, from a 300 acre pasture they were scattered across in about 3 hours with 38 caliber bird shot for back up.

Our selection process for replacements to the breeding herd is a gate cut from our annual calf production.  Why not be more selective for ones that are bigger, grow faster, etc. etc. I grew up on an innovative successful cattle ranch that is still ran by my family. I worked as an artificial insemination and embryo transfer technician through high school and college for 5-7 purebred and commercial beef operations representing 2000 cows annually. After receiving my BS degree in Animal Science and Economics, I worked in the livestock feed and pharmaceutical industry working in the beef and swine industries.  As I began understanding the buffalo and their husbandry - and remembering all the effort to use the latest technology and University research to improve beef herds - we made a conscious decision to try to keep the buffalo as they are and not try to improve them to the point of being like cattle.

I watch neighbors fret over winter weather that kills cows and calves while our herd is calving on open range in a blizzard unscathed while I am comfortable by the fire, having a cup of coffee.  I bump into them at feed stores during calving, blurry eyed, picking up more supplies to doctor sick calves and cows with calving troubles in coveralls spattered with mud and manure. And to think with university research funded by pharmaceutical and feed companies and breeding stock selection, we could be Just like them! NOT!

Summary

While I feel strongly about our method of operation I do not believe breeders who are highly selective breeders will destroy the industry.  Nature selected replacements many different ways and as long as everyone in our industry and industry leadership can support diversity and not overly support particular trend we will have the genetic make-up of the North American Bison alive and well for many years.  After all, mutants are part of evolution and the selective breeders could actually come up with something positive.