Bishop Ranch Family

Collaboratively written by South Dakota Farmers Union and the Bishop Family

As a child, Barry Bishop asked his dad, Joel Allen, what created the earthen depression on a hillside.

“Dad told me that those were ‘buffalo wallows’ from times past. Interesting thing is, our bison use those same wallows today,” explained Barry, a fourth generation Perkins County rancher.

Barry shared this story from his kitchen table. His wife, Nancy, and two of their four grown children, Adam and John, joined in the conversation.

This home has been added on to and updated extensively over the years. It was built in the early 1900s, as Barry’s great-grandpa Joel Hall’s original claim shack. That claim shack is now the family’s dining room.

None of the Bishop children remember a time before bison roamed the family’s land.

“After all these years, I never get tired of looking at them,” said John, the youngest of the Bishop siblings.

Their journey toward change began when tragedy struck in the spring of 1998. Barry’s dad developed a life-changing medical condition, landing him in the hospital for over a year, and he was not able to do any outside work for another two years. Though he ended up handicapped for the rest of his life, he still helped as much as he possibly could, despite his restrictions.

However, a few months into his hospital stay, he told Barry, “even if I survive and get back on my feet again, you are in charge now.” Although Barry was overwhelmed with the heaviness of the whole situation, he knew he had Nancy’s support and was determined to keep the four-generation ranch going hopefully onto the fifth and beyond.

Previously, when their herd was all comprised of cattle, the winter of 1996-97 was very severe. Their two homesteads being separated by a few miles of highway and a few of gravel, made it difficult for Barry to always get over to his dad’s, where the cattle were, in order to help with chores. One of the many blizzards that descended upon the countryside left the highway completely blocked for three days straight. Thankfully, Joel Allen, Barry’s dad, was right there and could always get them fed.

“I knew if another winter swept in like ’96- 97, it wasn’t an option for me to be stuck at my place, unable to get to the cattle for a period of time, as Dad’s handicap kept him from being able to feed anymore. I had always wanted to try bison. So, we started researching and found out how self-sufficient they are through storms. You can pre-feed them if you know bad weather is coming, and they will do just fine, eating snow for water, as well. During the Atlas blizzard, they just laid down in the pasture and waited out the storm,” Barry said.

And if a spring storm interrupts calving season, which the bison handle on their own, they will stop calving.

“Two years ago, we had a blizzard the first weekend of calving season. That weekend there were no calves on the ground. The expectant mothers waited until after the blizzard was over to give birth,” Barry said. “The next weekend, another storm came…the same thing happened.”

This ranch is a family-run business

Although the Bishop family sees a lot of benefits to raising bison, the transition from cattle ranching to bison was not without its challenges.

To name a few, the transition is a big commitment, starting with building up the fences and corrals and acquiring special working facilities.

Then there’s the learning curve of how to round them up or move them. “We were told that when you switch from cattle to bison, you have to somewhat wipe out what you’ve learned about handling cattle, or there will be a lot of frustration – so true,” Nancy said.

If the family needs to move their bison from one pasture to the next, they use the feed supplement pellets referred to as “cake” to motivate them.

“We cake trained them,” Adam said. “About a week before we plan to bring them in, late in the fall, we cake them every day, dropping the cake closer and closer, finally feeding it in the corrals. They love it and start moving right when they hear the cake pickup coming.”

In 2018, they attended a weeklong Grassfed Exchange conference as a family. And the information they learned got them thinking about transferring their land management focus from crops to raising forages and improving their grassland.

Shortly after, it was their local Natural Resources Conservation Service representative who helped them every step of the way to incorporate the many practices they were learning more about. Changes included wells, water pipeline, cross-fencing, as well as planting many quarters of cropland back to native grasses and forages.

At the time, their three sons were working on the ranch, so they all discussed the question that was posed to them, “what do you want to see your place look like in five years?”

Everyone was on board for the new venture. The family ranch then proceeded to expand from eight pastures to 31 in the next four years. And as a result of their grassland management plan, the Bishop family moves their bison frequently.

Transitioning away from farming to grassland and forages is not the first time Barry and Nancy involved their sons in the business side of the ranch.

Nancy homeschooled all four of their children, Joel, Adam, Anna and John. When each one took accounting class in high school, Nancy, who has a degree in business administration and accounting, had them learn Quickbooks by inputting all of the ranch corporation’s and their personal financial activities into the Quickbooks program for six months.

“I knew it was a smart thing to do because no matter what I decide to do in life, I need to be able to take care of my own money,” Adam said.

Barry has always been involved in ranch work. “I never wanted to do anything else. I like ranch life.”