Originally Posted By: JKB
 Originally Posted By: Weissguy
Bison and domestic cattle can hybridize, and they produce viable offspring. This cross is called Beefalo and is also a pretty popular meat. Technically, a "true" beefalo is 3/8 bison, 5/8 domestic bovine, but most people consider 1/2 and 1/2 crosses to be beefalo as well. They are more laid back and considered to be easier to handle on the farm/ranch than pure bison. They retain many of the benefits (lower fat and so forth) of the pure bison as well. They also tend to be less prone to diseases than either of the parents.

There are actually very few bison herds still in existance that are considered to be free of any domestic bovine genetics, the herd of Plains Bison (Bison bison bison) in Yellowstone being one of them. There is also a herd of the slightly larger subspecies, the Wood Bison (Bison bison athabascae), in Canada that is considered "pure".


More info on Beefalo can be found here: http://americanbeefalo.org/


There was a beefalo farm auctioned off not more than 15 miles from here. They did a start-up, looked good for a bit with all the press, then the auction. Don't know what really happened. Banks were falling apart at that time.


They were promoted down here too but for some reason you don't hear about them much anymore. Maybe just a fad? Maybe with some of the disease problems with bison it's hard to find a clean herd to cross with the beef? Our state gave up tiger muskies because it was a pain to keep on hand northern pike broodstock.

I've got to say I'm surprised that offspring don't look more like bison.



Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 01/27/10 11:04 PM.

If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.