I just booked a hunt on the Crow Reservation. I can shoot a meat cow, or an older dry cow. I haven't made up my mind yet, but I am asking for advice. Really looking forward to the meat, so I would like to get info from those that were successful as to what they did with it, and any help with the questions below would be appreciated. I have spoken to the outfitter, but I wanted to get some perspective from anyone here, because more info is always better, imho. I should note that this is a free range hunt, and we will be breaking them down and putting them in coolers, so there won't be a chance to hang and age the carcasses.

How much meat can I expect from a younger meat cow versus an older trophy dry cow? (Lets say 600 pounds versus 1000 pounds on the hoof)

Anyone shoot an older cow or bull and not grind it all up? How good or bad was it?

Any cooking tips?

I am thinking that if I took an older cow, I would just grind it all into burger and go from there, we can use the heck out of that at home, and I can make sticks, sausage, etc. However, steaks, roasts and chops would be fantastic, but I don't want to end up with a freezer full of shoe leather.

Thanks in advance for all replies!

The only bison I have ever killed was supposedly about age 7. FWIW: Most of the meat was tough. Flavor was excellent but it really wasn't any good for anything other than burgers, chili, casseroles, etc.

Go for quality ( youngun)
When hunting for meat I at least always try to shoot yearlings or fawns as you just can’t beat tender meat

I've shot 2 yearling "meat cow" bison, both on Ted Turner's ranches. One in Nebraska and the other in Montana.

The hanging weight (minus guts, hide, head and legs) was ~420 lbs. which compares to about 200 for a mature cow elk. This probably broke down into about 300 lbs of boneless meat.

The meat is delicious and you handle it like beef. No special treatment necessary. You don't have to age the meat, which most people do the wrong way anyway. Even those who say they don't like wild meat will love bison.

I recommend taking the youngest bison available. All of the cuts will be tended and delicious. If you take an older bison you'll get 5-600 lbs. of ground meat and / or an enormous bill for sausage.

On difference between Buffalo and Beef to keep in mind when cooking steaks, Buffalo meat does not have the fat marbling and will cook up drier than beef, therefore it will be tougher. If a person likes their steaks cooked well done or medium well, buffalo cooked the same way may not impress them. Just my experience.

yes very low fat.
when we ground one up I was adding about 15% beef fat to the buffalo.
I add about the same to our deer just for comparison.

Too dry ? Then lard the meat or braise it . Braising can do wonders as you have with the Italian Osso Buco or Coda de Bue [That's veal shanks and ox tail ]

I shot a young one on the Henry mountains (drew the cow tag). Very lean meat, good but not as good as beef. Go for a young cow (unless you like eating bison burger)

YUP! If you're looking at an older animal..... grind it!
I shot an eight year old bull that some of the others in my hunting party were determined to make some steak and roasts with. They all ended up grinding it anyways!
Watch how you cook bison, even a younger animal. The mistake that a lot of people make is to overcook it, making it dry and unpalatable. It should pretty much have a bit of blood running from it.

I'll let you know how the hunt goes in just over 3 weeks.
I'm headed up to hunt cow buffalo with the Crow Nation shortly.
Grinding almost all of it is on my schedule of things to do. With 5 married kids, we can use burger pretty readily.
Zeke

I don't want to step on any toes but make damn sure they get that hide off as soon as possible not to mention butchering as well. I'm very surprised they would do this in August. Best of luck and hope you have a great time.

quote:

Originally posted by ZekeShikar:
I'll let you know how the hunt goes in just over 3 weeks.
I'm headed up to hunt cow buffalo with the Crow Nation shortly.
Grinding almost all of it is on my schedule of things to do. With 5 married kids, we can use burger pretty readily.
Zeke

We shot a couple several years ago. There was more meat than we could handle. As someone mentioned, there is little fat. It is easy to over cook it. Ours was excellent.

Randy gives good advice.

If anyone knows it’s Randy
So I was you I’d listen to him before rest of us

I've shot a couple on Turner's Flying D Ranch in Montana. First one was a bull of about 12 years old for the mount. He was huge, meat was excellent, but tough. I only kept back straps and a bit of other meat. Donated the rest to Gallatin food bank. I also shot a yearling bull in winter, for the freezer. Meat was outstanding! Tender and delicious. I'd love to take another bison for the freezer, but would only shoot a young one.

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy j:
Watch how you cook bison, even a younger animal. The mistake that a lot of people make is to overcook it, making it dry and unpalatable. It should pretty much have a bit of blood running from it.

I think this applies to all lean wild game. I've found anything more done that medium rare to be a complete waste of good meat.

I also like to brush olive oil onto my elk/deer/oryx/antelope/whatever steaks before grilling. Searing the oil goes a long way towards retaining the limited natural moisture in the meat and results in a much tastier steak.

quote:

I think this applies to all lean wild game. I've found anything more done that medium rare to be a complete waste of good meat.

When I was hunting/killing more game, Lora and I did most or all the processing ourselves and we would give friends and family deer meat, but we finally went to just giving them ground venison because they just could not stop cooking back strap well done!

Cow bison roasts are delicious when slow cooked in a crock pot or such. The steaks were generally disappointing because of the lack of marbling.

In 2010 I shot two in South Dakota with my 4-bore double rifle. The ranch was the Triple U and was where Dances With Wolves was filmed. As I was traveling around the USA that year I could not use the meat so the ranch sold it to local restaurants and the price of the hunt was priced accordingly. Great experience.
Cal

I'd love to turn one of those old bulls into about 1,000 pounds of South African Biltong... anyone every tried it?

I was in a farm store in Petrusville RSA and bought a 5# bag of biltong spice.. Man that was good stuff... I used London broils to make my biltong.. I'd love to get a few more bags of that spice.. can't find it here and I didn't save the bag with the indigence listed to try to make up my own..

I have hunted bison several times cows and meat bulls also a trophy 9 yo bull, I did it for the meat. You can get good steaks, roasts out of a bull up until about 3 yo and a cow about 5 yo.
My neighbor here in Pa. raises one or two every year to butcher he sells what he does not use himself . I've been at his place for dinner often an the bison meat off a 2yo cow or bull is great. He says under 2yo too much bone to meat ratio for his liking.

Can it and pressure cook some and grind the rest

quote:

Originally posted by Randy Routier:
I don't want to step on any toes but make damn sure they get that hide off as soon as possible not to mention butchering as well. I'm very surprised they would do this in August. Best of luck and hope you have a great time.

quote:

Originally posted by ZekeShikar:
I'll let you know how the hunt goes in just over 3 weeks.
I'm headed up to hunt cow buffalo with the Crow Nation shortly.
Grinding almost all of it is on my schedule of things to do. With 5 married kids, we can use burger pretty readily.
Zeke

Thanks Randy,
Your opinion is highly valued!
Oh course you'd know as well or better than anyone that they need to be taken care of in a HUGE hurry. Especially this time of year. I'll follow your advice to the letter!
It'll be "all hand on deck" after the shot.
Zeke

I took a 1600 pound management bull on Ted turners ranch several years ago. The carcass weight was slightly over 800 pounds. I had it processed locally in Montana, the butcher recommended have it hung for 7 to 10 days which he would check to see when it was ready, it hunt for 8 days before butchering, had it frozen and shipped by refrigerated truck. when the meat arrived it was frozen solid. Since it hung and cured the meat was excellent and not tough what so ever for an older bull.

quote:

Originally posted by ZekeShikar:

quote:

Originally posted by Randy Routier:
I don't want to step on any toes but make damn sure they get that hide off as soon as possible not to mention butchering as well. I'm very surprised they would do this in August. Best of luck and hope you have a great time.

quote:

Originally posted by ZekeShikar:
I'll let you know how the hunt goes in just over 3 weeks.
I'm headed up to hunt cow buffalo with the Crow Nation shortly.
Grinding almost all of it is on my schedule of things to do. With 5 married kids, we can use burger pretty readily.
Zeke

Thanks Randy,
Your opinion is highly valued!
Oh course you'd know as well or better than anyone that they need to be taken care of in a HUGE hurry. Especially this time of year. I'll follow your advice to the letter!
It'll be "all hand on deck" after the shot.
Zeke

We learned about this the hard way about 20 years ago. It was a day in the mid-30s getting down to the lower 20s that night. It wasn't supposed to happen this way but we had 3 young bulls down within a couple of hours right before dark. After field dressing them we hung them overnight to start the butchering project the next morning. As soon as we got there the next morning you could instantly smell something was not right. Sure enough with the thick hide and big bones they did not cool down whatsoever and were spoiled.

never took an old one and i always aim for youngs in the hunt we can do.

sometimes i eat bison where the meat was not well taken care and not very good to eat ...

even by -40c below you need to skin them and gut them fast ...

What's a Bison?

IS that the same as Bison New York?

George

George you just hit on one of my persona;l Pet Peeves. My boss bought a small herd of BUFFALO back in late 2011, a bull and 14 cows if I remember correctly although it may have just been 13.

We went thru 5 years with pretty fair breeding results and by wionter 2016 the herd numbered 64 animals. Now during all that time we only had two incidents of buffalo getting out, and they were staying inside a regular barb wire fence.

The first time was not real long after we turned them out of the holding corral and the bunch got a little too close evidently to one of the crews that were working on the installation of the wind turbines as they were going out one of the perimeter gates and they drove off and left the gate open.

We drove out with some cattle cubes and they followed us right back into the pasture. The other time a few of them found a hole in the fence at a creek crossing they could walk thru, but again we got them to following us and they walkmed right back in the gate.

Fast forward to late summer 2017 and because we had not been selling any off, we had several 2 to 3 year old bulls and herd dynamics being what they are with buffalo the breeder bulls got to chasing the youngs ones off and it turned into quite an ordeal that ended up with the boss being out about 2500 dollars getting a helicopter to push the herd back about 7 miles thru the mesquites on to his property.

With all that out of the way, some folks raising buffalo/people in quasi-scientific situationsi.e. naturalists/wildlife biologists/zoo keepers and others wishing to sound IMPORTANT, make an overt effort to refer to them as Bison and in point of fact, scientifically they are classified as Bison.

The problem I have is that they have been called Buffalo for centuries here in America, the first use in written literature using the word Buffalo was in 1754 I believe, and as a zookeeper that worked with Buffalo for about 15 years, the average zoo visitor, regardless of their nationality, whjen they walked up to the exhibit and caught sight of the group called them BUFFALO.

As a person looks at a map of North America there are hundreds if not thousands of places including cities with the word Buffalo in their name.

So when talking to people about the critters I never refer to the critters as Bison unless the person asks a question about the use of the word buffalo anmd then I give them an explanation not all that different from the last few sentences of this response.

I live in Buffalo and about one hour to the east is the town of Bison.

quote:

Originally posted by Randy Routier:
I live in Buffalo and about one hour to the east is the town of Bison.

That's funny and sort of ironic Randy!