Our bottle baby growing up....

Andy was one of the first bison calves born on our farm in the srping of 2003.  He was a twin, which seemed to confuse the boys' poor Mother. She didn't seem to understand that she had 2, and would only care for one at a time, though neither was really getting enough care.  We tried to intervene, but the herd was too protective and we resigned ourselves to letting nature take its' course.  When the boys were a day old, I snuck home from work at lunch to check on them and fate was on or side.  Andy had gotten too weak to keep up, and the herd had moved into another pasture, leaving him there alone.  I dashed down, closed the gate to separate him from the herd and called Todd to come home.  We picked Andy up and carried him to the barn, there wasn't much fight left in him and we didn't hold out much hope.

(Andy at 2 days old, still not too sure if us 2 legged animals can be trusted)

We got some collostrum milk from the vet and fresh goats milk from a friend, and manage to get the collostrum into him that night.  We went to bed, certain he would be gone by morning.  When I went out the next morning, he was gone alright, he'd perked up through the night and pushed open the stall door we'd forgotten to lock.  I found him at the far end of the barn busy knocking things over and making a pest of himself.  I looped a rope around his neck and he just trotted along beside me back to his stall, where I made sure I locked the door this time!

He took to the bottle quite quickly, and was drinking goats milk like it was going out of style.  I was making a couple of trips home through the day from work to feed and check on him.  After a few weeks, the volume fo goats milk he was going through forced us to switch over to a milk replacement powder, and again, he took to it easily.

(another pic the same day - 2 days old and looking good)

We halter trained him early on and he loved to go for walks with us around the farm.  He was growing really well, though not quite as well as his brother, who was now receiving his mother's full attention, and all of her rich milk.  Even though a little small, Andy was very healthy and rambunctious.  He had a soccer ball in his stall that he loved to play with.  I'd kick it to him and he'd spin around and double-barrel it with his back feet, then chase it and try and jump on top of it. 

We tried to teach him to drink milk out of a pail, but until he was a few weeks older, it was a losing battle.  Bottle feeding him was becoing more difficult since he loved to push and shove at the bottle while he drank.

By 2 months, Andy had learned to drink out of a pail, well sort of anyway.  He liked to stick his whole head in the pail, with his nose right under, so he had to stop drinking to come up and breathe.  He also needed to be washed off after his meals because he made such a milky sticky mess of his head.  He figured it out after a while though.  At 3 months we decided he was big enough to stay out during the day, so we put him out with our goat Lucy for company.  He was affraid of her at first, but they quickly became friends.

He stayed with her until he was about 9 months old, when he was getting a bit too big to play with Lucy.  Lucy moved out, and our donkey Stewart moved in as Andy's newest friend.

Poor guy must have been having an identity crisis, he was a buffalo, and then a person, then a goat, and now a donkey.  Through all his new field playmates though, I was still his "Mommy".  He'd follow me everywhere and cry when I left him. 

At 9 months, Andy was living with stewart, and onto eating just solid food, he would still come for walks with us on the lead, but if we walked him past the field with the other bison, we would stick tight to us, and didn't want to get close.  We didn't risk putting him back into the herd, he had become such a pet, and knew nothing of how to be a bison, or defend himself.  He would almost surely have been killed.

Since he couldn't be with the main herd, and if he was going to remain a pet, he couldn't remain a bull, we "fixed" him when he was a year old.  Bison bulls can become quite agressive, and it would have been too dangerous to leave him intact. 

He had outgrown his donkey pal as well, so we decided to get him a friend of his own species.  We purchased a yearling bison heifer, who we named Vera, and she now lives with Andy.  She was ranch raised, so is not really tame at all.  When we go in the field to see Andy, she keeps her distance.

This is our most recent picture of Andy (left) and his friend Vera.  We figure he's upwards of 800 pounds now.  A little small for his age, but we sort of expected that, being a twin, bottle raised and not on his mother's milk.  He's still friendly as ever and loves attention.