IBC2000-8 Production 

Feeding Bison Bulls for Meat

Dr. Vern Anderson
Carrington Research Extension Center
North Dakota State University
Box 219
Carrington  ND   USA   58421

The following article was originally presented at the International Bison Conference in Edmonton, Alberta in August 2000.  The conference covered a wide array of bison topics including production, marketing, genetics, history and much more.  This article has been reprinted with the permission of the IBC2000 Chairman.

Abstract

Bison bulls are fed grain for a period of time prior to harvest to provide a consistent product to consumers.  Little information is available on feeds, feeding systems, and optimum management of bison bulls fed for meat.  Many producers are using highly variable feeds (screenings) with low cost being the primary criterion.  Higher energy diets using grains at up to 75% of the diet have provided more rapid and economical gains in replicated research trials.  Season, particularly winter, has a detrimental effect on feed intake and gain.  Bison respond negatively to stress from working the animals for weighing or vaccinating.  Animal performance is also negatively affected by adding or removing animals from a feeding pen.  There is a great need for more bison nutrition research to determine basic nutrient requirements as well as practical and economical approaches to feeding. 

Keywords

Bison, Nutrition, Feeding, Season, Energy

Introduction

One of  the most challenging segments of the entire bison industry is the nutrition and management of bison bulls from weaning to slaughter.  This segment is particularly challenging because bison produce modest gains from self-limited intake and exhibit highly variable and mediocre feed conversion.  Further complicating this feeding period is the effect of season as winter decreases intake and reduces performance. We need to determine the most economical feeding regimes while maintaining an appropriate environment for bison with the goal of producing a quality meat product for repeat consumer demand.

Feeding Research

Bison producers feeding smaller numbers of animals are using self feeders for the concentrate and hay components of the diet.  They are using a variety of feeds in diets that vary widely in ingredients (Table 1) with the major criterion being price per ton (Anderson and Sexhus 1996).  Little attention is being paid to nutritional content or cost per nutrient at this time.  Several feeds have shown promise in improving gains based on energy concentration (Anderson and Miller 1997).  While wheat screenings based diets produce highly variable gains, conventional grains such as corn and barley are consistent and generally produce lower cost of gain (Table 2).  Rolling corn improved gains over whole corn (Anderson and Miller 1999).  There is an upper limit to grain inclusion with data from Stanton et al. (1996).  They fed grain at 30, 50, 70, and 90% of the diet, and concluded that there was no improvement in feeding grain at higher than 70% of the ration (Table 3).  We have concluded that the forage component of bison diets is important to optimum rumen function.

Table 1.  Producer survey data from bison feeders in North and South Dakota

Table 2.  Performance of feedlot bison on two energy levels, two corn types and two processing methods

Table 3.  Effect of concentrate level on performance of bison bulls fed for meat^z

^ZReprinted from (Stanton et al. 1996)

More recent data on the length of grain feeding for bison has been developed by Anderson and Bock (2000).  They extended the forage feeding window with four treatments using cooperating producers to gather data (Fig. 1).  Intake during the feeding sector increased with older bulls that had been fed forage for longer periods of time (Table 4).  Gains improved during the feeding sector (Table 5) but overall gains, feed efficiency, and carcass quality tended to decrease with increasing time fed forage.  Cost per pound of gain appeared to favor the intermediate treatments.

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Fig. 1.  Schematic diagram of seasonal  treatments for maximizing forage and minimizing grain in bison fed for meat (Anderson and Bock, 2000)

Table 4.  Performance of bison bulls when maximizing forage and minimizing grain intake from weaning to market^z

^zReprinted from Anderson and Bock, 2000.  
^YTreatments correspond with treatments described in Fig. 1.