How to render pork fat or beef/bison tallow
Learn how to render animal fat, and why you want to!
Author: Laura Wheeler
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Curious about our bundles? Take a look behind the scenes!
An insider's look at our bundles.
Soil health: why you should care!
Just how important is soil health to you? Let us count the ways.
Why choose grass finished meat over conventionally raised meat?
There are many, many reasons to choose grass finished meat. Here's the top 4 nutrition related reasons!
It's bison week!
A closeup of some of the bison on our ranch, and link to a neat video of a "cutting horse" working bison!
What does "grass fed" as a food label mean to the USDA? The answer is....nothing.
Be careful buying "grass fed" meat from grocery stores! Learn why you need to read labels carefully.
Our Ranch
Our ranch is located in Saint Ignatius, MT. You can see our bison from the junction of Airport Road and Watson Road, about a mile off of Highway 93. We have 120 acres, 40 of those are currently fenced for bison. We are hopeful that we can get the other 80 fenced during the spring of 2021. We raise bison, cattle, and pigs. We are in the process of building and developing all of our herds.Currently we have about 25 head of bison on the ranch. Our first five bison heifers came from the National Bison Range. We added five more yearling heifers a year later. Our bull came from another local bison producer named Chris Sullivan. (He has been an invaluable resource to us, and we appreciate him!) Stay tuned for a later blog post that highlights all of our girls. Our cattle herd is comprised of a few mixed breeds. We have Angus, British White, Holstein, Jersey, Guernsey, and Brown Swiss. We keep or sell cows based on their performance in an all-grass system. If they can't produce a calf that can grow and thrive on pasture only then we find them a new home. Though you wouldn't think it from the mix of breeds, we produce short fat calves which are ideal for grass finishing. We love walking out through our cows, most of them will let you pet them. A few of them will track you down for a good scratch!The Mangalitsas are our newest addition. Pigs have been a learning experience, but they are fun. We chose Mangalitsas for their unparalleled meat quality. The drawback to the breed is they are slower growing, often taking a year to grow to harvest size (other breeds reach size at about 6 months). There are few people offering them commercially because of this trait. However, we like niche products and are excited about their potential. If you drive by, feel free to check out the bison from Airport Road or Watson Road, just be careful of the electric fence!
Who are we?
Tony and I found each other working in the oilfields of North Dakota. Tony was hauling heavy equipment with a lowboy, and I was hauling gravel for building roads and oil pads. When we first met I don't think we really had any idea what kind of adventure we were starting! We have scraped, struggled, and learned about a variety of industries. Between both of us we have hauled equipment, hauled gravel for oil pads, done milling and paving work, hauled production water from oil wells, hauled logs, and gone over the road. We've made it through truck break downs, slow times in the oil industry, and starting from scratch building a ranch. We've changed rear ends in gravel pits, replaced truck engines in borrowed shops, fought froze up or broke down trucks alongside the road in -20 degree temperatures, and lived in the trucks (and the 4runner!) and barely survived without air conditioning during the long hot summers (haha-kinda). When we got ahold of the bison ranch dream it gave us a goal to work towards. We weren't just paying our bills and saving up for truck upgrades anymore, we were building something. At the time we weren't quite sure exactly where we were going with bison and ranching, but we were bound and determined to do it. We haven't made it to being full-time ranchers yet, we are still trucking. But we are closer to home, and are working in industries that are more stable than oil. Within the next couple months we will finally be able to offer our very first bison for sale, born and raised on our ranch. We are so excited to have finally gotten to this point. Its been a long road since we started in 2016!
New Website!
The Roaming Bison Ranch finally has new website! Click through our pages, and check back for more blog posts telling our story from the very beginning up until now. Keep your eyes on our store, because soon we will have bison boxes and beef boxes available! We are hoping to implement a shipping program so our friends, family, and interested customers can order from far away