On November 6th, several members of the Cook AZ
Chapter visited Erick Doyle’s bison farm in Readington, NJ. We learned about
the difficulties of managing an animal operation where the farmer is not able
to have much contact with the animals due to their lack of domestication. We
talked about silage making and bison nutrition and how to make the best of the
resources available to you. Erick gets a lot of the milk he feeds to his calves
from a nearby dairy that donates product they can’t use. During the holiday
season, this includes some eggnog which we learned makes bison coats nice and
shiny! This was a great experience to visit an atypical animal operation and
learn about hands off animal management.