The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 874: How To Start A Bison Ranch

Episode Date: May 11, 2026

Steven Rinella talks with Matt Skoglund of North Bridger Bison. Topics discussed: How you get from being a lawyer in Chicago to being a bison rancher in Montana; conservation herds vs. wild herds, and how there are very few wild bison; why do people actually think cattle ranching is more favorable?; the importance of private land bison herds; the grasslands crisis; connecting our food to conservation; and more. Order bison meat from North Bridger here.  Connect with Steve and The MeatEater Podcast Network Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E.com. All right, man, joined today by Matt Skoglin from North Bridger Bison, a private, like a, a, a, a, a, buffalo rancher. Exactly. Yeah. I'll tell you, the first thing I want to tell you about is, um, dude, though, the, the, the, the hangar stakes. Yeah.

That you gave me. Yeah. You gave me off those animals. Yeah. It's like, is, I hate to say it, because. I should be saying this about like deer meat or something, but dude, that is some of the best stuff in the world, man. I know. It's so good. It, uh, we, we eat a bunch of them.

And it's like the flavor texture. Um, yeah, they're just so good. Hey, tell people, because that's not, like, if you're cutting up a deer. Right. Hang or steak isn't on the menu. You know, I mean, like, like, tell people what, like, it's, it's an off cut. Yeah. So it's funny.

So it's this, it's this steak that hangs suspended right in front of the tenderloins. And so early on, I would, you know, I'd kill a buffalo, gut it, take it to Amsterdam meat shop,

our butcher. And they'd be like, where's the hanger? I'd be like, guys, like, what are you talking about? And they're like,

you know, blah, blah, blah, right here. And I'd be out there by myself. I'm like, I'm like,

are they messing with me? Like, I cannot find this thing. And I had to YouTube it, but so it's hanging and it's suspended. And it's covered in like fascia skin. It doesn't look like anything. And if you didn't know, it just comes right out with the gut pile. And it's kind of like attached to like the liver and the lungs. But once you, once you know, you take it out and there's one per animal.

And it's called a hanging tender. What is that thing's purpose, man? I don't know. I've wondered the same thing. It'd be easy to find out. I know what it does for the animal. Like if he was born with no hangar, would you know it? That's a great question.

Would he walk funny or something? Yeah, I know. Yeah, it's just this weird muscle just literally hanging and they used to call it. Fomit. Hey, Phil, if you get a minute, like when you're over there, do whatever you do over there. Sure. What, like, purpose does it serve? The hangar.

Yeah, like, what is it doing for the animal? Sure, I'll do some quick research here. We should all know this. Yeah, 100%. It does. I think it's just meant to be a good thing to eat. It's like a gift from God to humans. Exactly.

Literally, because it just hangs there and you cut it out, cut that tendon out, and you got two beautiful sticks. So when you, the ones, well, let me explain why I'm talking about this. We do, we did a dinner recently here at our office. And I called Matt and I was looking for some of the like added value product or some of the not standard. products that would come about. Yep. You know what I didn't hit you up before, is it?

Some tails, man. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yep. So he gave me some marrow bones. Yep. Okay. Some hangar steak.

Heart. I'm trying to think what else we had in there. Some shank pieces. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Some shank pieces. And we cooked all this stuff up. So we did this big meal of all, like, sort of the non, like, non-typical, non-standard

things from, from, from, one of your animals. And the hangers, we just marinated them. Yep. And grilled them and then kind of cut them against the grain. Dude, it is the, yeah. Like, it is a, it is a perfect food. Yeah, 100%. That's amazing. And the thing that's cool. Me, you can, I've done it multiple times where I'll kill Buffalo, gut it, and just grab the hanger for us and we'll eat it for dinner, you know, six hours later. Perfect. Like, so good. Yeah. Yeah. Tell people, tell people, tell people, specifically what you do, like what your business is. Yeah.

Like how you make your living. Totally. So pretty straightforward. So, um, my wife, Sarah and I and our kids, Otto and Greta, we started our bison ranch, North Bridger bison. We started it from scratch eight years ago. And we're located. Is that all it's been?

Yeah. Oh, you're kicking ass for eight years. Oh, thanks. You just been doing it eight years? Oh, wow. Um, and, uh, so yeah, we're up in the Shield Valley, 30 miles northeast of Bozeman. and we it's pretty simple. We raise bison as well and in sync with nature as possible.

We're all about biodiversity. And then we sell, we raise them for meat, sell 100% direct to consumer. And then every bite, and we sell by the quarter half whole bison. And then everyone we sell, I personally field harvest each bison. So no live bison leaves the ranch. Field harvested two yesterday. And yeah, so I kill them on the, the ranch, bleed them, gut them, and then ultimately take them to our butcher, Amsterdam meat shop,

and then we either deliver it to the customer, and then we ship all over the country. And that's it. We keep it super simple. How do people come find you? Yeah, our website. So literally just Northbridgeabison.com and then like shop, meat and shows what options are there. So there's quarter, half, hole, and then an all ground bison option. And then a primal blend, which is ground bison with some heart and some liver. Oh, okay. Which is, yeah. And that's it.

So, yeah, we keep it like, we're obsessed with details, strive for excellence. So we don't want to get spread thin, chasing, shiny little objects. So it's raising buffalo as well in sync with nature as possible. And then really trying to provide our customers with the best red meat they'll ever taste in their life. Well, like, walk me through, like, how did you, how did you get interested in, Do you know what I mean? Like, why that animal and not sheep or cattle or goats, you know, or drafts or something? Like, why that, right?

Yeah. So I guess to like to back up. So, um, so I'm born and raised in Chicago. Zero background in agriculture whatsoever. Uh, and then we moved to Bozeman, uh, 18 years ago, 2008. And I spent 10 years doing environmental policy work for a conservation organization. And the main issue I worked on was bison, focused on wild bison,

mainly the bison population around Yellowstone National Park. And just, you know, fed, fell head over heels in love with the species. So you were doing that as an attorney. So, no. So, yeah, so went to law school, had a short stint as a lawyer, realized very quickly that being a lawyer was just not for me. Got it. And, but had this, you know,

You were doing like normal corporate law dogging. Exactly. Yeah. Did you have a billboard on the side of the highway? No. Scoglin gets tough for you, you know. I love it. No, we, no. So I graduated in 05. It's like hurt. Call Scoblin. I kicked her ass. I graduated 05, clerked for a federal magistrate judge in Chicago for a year. Okay. Incredible. Amazing guy. We're still very close. He married. Sarah and me.

And then I went to a big firm for two years, which I knew wasn't for me long term, but it's a good place to start. And then we were just. And what kind of law was that? Just, yeah, corporate litigation. Big firm, just a grind. Like, suit and tie in it? Probably not suit and tie.

Not, but you had it. You kept a suit and tie behind the door to your office. In case a partner called you at like two o'clock. And it was like, hey, go to court. And you're like, shit, I got to throw a tie on. Yeah. And then we were just, we were dying. I'd fall in love with Montana, Northern Rockies long time ago.

And we were dying to move out here. So we, we, we, in 08, we were just like, we were getting married and we just felt it's now or never. Like if we don't do this right now, life's just going to get more complicated. You have a kid. And so you'll get all dug in. Exactly. Everything will be a pain in the ass. 100%.

So we, so we quit our jobs, got married, moved to Bozeman. Friends and family thought we were bat-chick crazy. We were like, now, we're just, we're doing it. We'll figure it out. And at that point, I knew I was, I did not want to be a lawyer. And so I, this was a dream job for me. It was a non-litigation policy rule. Okay.

Yeah. So it's like the perfect job for a former lawyer. And the main issue I worked on is bison. So, you know, like, let's talk about that. Let's talk about that issue. Yeah. Because you talk about like around the park, right? Yeah.

So I just want, I want to, I want to, we've talked about this 100. We talk about this all the time on the show. Yep. It's like a, it's a subject I'm deeply interested in. You're going to know more about it than me as much or as much about it as me as more and you're going to know different aspects of it. Sure. But when you're talking about that, I'll just tee it up and you can comment on where you want is, there's this just never ending conversation. Right.

Right. It was like, uh, I moved, I moved to Montana in 1996. I think it was nice. Yeah, 96. it was being talked about then. Yep. It's being talked about now. Yep.

It's basically what is the relationship. What are the relationships between the states of Montana and Wyoming with the bison herd that resides in Yelstow National Park? Yep. You can't separate all these things. Totally. There's this great quote about the park. It's like, it's like whatever. It's two million acres of paradise surrounding.

surrounded by reality or something like that, right? So it's like there's these thousands, thousands of animals that live within the park. Yep. But wild animals aren't good at recognizing, like, jurisdictional boundaries. Of course, right? And so they're routinely spilling out of the park

into surrounding private lands, national forest lands. And there's just a constant debate about what should the state's tolerance for these animals be what should be their designation. Yep. Oh, yeah. Currently, and, you know, pardon me, listeners, we talk about this all the time on the show. Currently, and it blows my mind, if a Buffalo walks out of the park onto into Montana, it crosses the park border. Yep. It becomes livestock. Right. because the state doesn't recognize any real difference between the owned livestock animals

and the wild free-roaming animals. An interesting hook here to say that there is a way that this can work out. We've talked about this too. Colorado recently passed, I don't know if you just saw this. Colorado recently passed legislation that says

if a bison walks into the state on its own fore legs. Right. It is wildlife. Right. Right.

Drawing a distinction. Yeah. And not to like discredit private producers. Totally. Or not to take private producers property from them, but drawing a distinction between some of these are wildlife. Yep. Some of these are livestock and recognizing that there's, there's two versions.

Yep. Which is a pretty like, I don't know, I was, I was quite pleased with that distinction over there. For sure. For sure. With that little bit of setup, what aspects it is that you work on? So, well, one, I think, so my understanding, and I don't follow it as closely, but in Montana, the dichotomy, if you will, is that, so when they're in the park, they're wildlife. Yeah. And then they, they literally, they step over this boundary that, like you said, they can't see.

Yeah. They enter Montana. And at that point, they're jointly managed between fish wildlife and. and parks that manage wildlife and then the Department of Livestock. Yeah. The man is livestock. But like old. Yeah.

So they're, I mean, I'm splitting hairs, but they, you know, because they have. You're correct. Yeah. So, so, so it's like fish, wildlife and parks would say that's a wildlife species, but we have joint management with the Department of Livestock. And that's the only species in the state that has that. And so what, what, what, what I worked on very succinctly was expanding the tolerance for Yellowstone Bison outside the park in Montana.

Yeah. Because we've got, you know, millions of acres of public land where bison are not welcome. And, and, and, and the, the thing that was cool was we actually made progress. Like, it's this issue, like you just laid out. Tolerant zones. Yeah. And they were, so when I started on it, there were, it was, there was much less tolerance for bison outside the park.

And, uh, there was this group of us and it was, you'll appreciate this. So the Yellowstone Bison are managed under the interagency bison management plan, the IBMP, that all stems from a lawsuit between the state of Montana and the feds and a negotiated settlement in 2000. And so it's Montana, well, it's Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks, Department of Livestock, the Forest Service, the Park Service, USDA Aethus, which is the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. and then the intertribal Buffalo Council, NesPERS, CSKT. And they wanted to see more tolerance outside the park. And there was a congressional review report that came out in like 2006 or something. And one of the criticisms was that the IBMP partners weren't getting enough citizen feedback

and acting on it. And so they would talk about it. They'd three meetings a year, a winter meeting. Yeah, I think it was three meetings a year. And it was like three years they spent talking about finding a way to get more citizen input. And they were struggling with it because you've got state, tribal, federal entities. And I could see it didn't, it was, they were acting in good faith.

They were just struggling with a mechanism to do this. and there was this one meeting where the former state veterinarian Marty Zaluski, who's a really good guy and a good friend of mine, and he was frustrated and he's like, look, you know, we've been trying this for three years and we're stuck. And he's like, there's nothing to stop the citizens, the people that are concerned about this from starting something.

And he said, he goes, you know, if Matt Scogland, a bison advocate, an Ariel Overs Street from the Montana stockroars, came to me and said, we think you should do this. He's like,

that'd be powerful if you had wildlife advocates and stock growers. And so after that meeting, Ariel and I and a few others, this great local sheep rancher Becky Weed. We formed this citizens working group that the agencies all supported. The former Region 3, Fishwad Life and Park Director, Pat Flowers,

was a huge help, Mary Erickson from the Forest Service. And we got this just very different, diverse group of people who's a couple ranchers, wildlife advocates, hunters, local business owners and Gardner and West Yellowstone, landowners. And we basically, and we spent, it was a facilitated process for over a year. And we came up with consensus recommendations, delivered them to the agency partners, and they actually acted on it. And so some of them were like, they were pretty simple. The best example I can give

was that the Horse Butte Peninsula north of west Yellowstone is this peninsula that goes out into Hebgin Lake and on the east side is bordered by Yellowstone Park. 25 years ago there was a public grazing lease and a private cattle ranch on Horse

Butte. The federal grazing leases have been permanently retired and that private ranch was bought and the cattle are gone. So you have this peninsula that never has a cow on it ever. And we're still using tax that we were still using taxpayer dollars to haze bison back into the park to protect cattle that literally don't exist. And everyone agreed we're like, this is crazy. And so stuff like that that we were able to agree on,

present to the partners. And they expanded the tolerance. And that was like really satisfying work. And I would say, but now I feel like, you know, I feel like we accomplished all the low-hanging fruit. And now it's just, it's tough. It's a tough issue. Yeah. When you mention that, that, I don't want to spend too much time on the subject, but you mentioned that like joint management, there has been for sure, like bringing in public hunts. Yep. Right. So, so there are, there are, like, there are of the animals coming out of the park in the winter, there are tribal hunts. Yep.

There are public draw hunts. Yeah. I put in for one of the, I, I put in for, there's three, there's three different hunt codes or hunt availabilities. Yeah. I put in for the one that you're never going to draw. Yeah. Every year. I put in for that one.

Yeah. So there are, and like, guys here in the office have drawn, have drawn the tags. And so there is a, there is an increased management perspective. Yeah. But it is not as clean as. It's not as clean as what, say, elk and joy. Oh, yeah. No, not even close.

Yeah. Yeah. No, it's a, it's a complicated issue with unfortunately no, no clear end in sight. Yeah. Yeah. So when you were doing that and you were involved in trying to restore the animals as wildlife. Yep. And I think I want to add one interesting point about that is when I first got into the subject all these years ago, someone had mentioned like, we had solved.

the problem of genetic extinction. Uh-huh. Yep. Right? Like, if you go back to 1900, yeah. There was a real risk of the species going genetically extinct. Or going through like really terrible, you know, it did go through terrible bottlenecks, but there was like, there was a time when, like,

I've made this point before, there was a time when a lightning bolt could have feasibly killed a significant percentage of all the animals. that existed. Oh, yeah. I mean, they, they were bottlenecked down. Big time. And so people were like, we solve the problem of genetic extinction. Yeah.

Right? Like, we got different source herds and conservation herds scattered around. Like, there's no thing that's going to happen. Right. They're separated. There's not like some like strain of anthrax is going to all of a sudden infect a herd and kill off half of the animals known to exist. Yeah.

So like genetic extinction. But they pointed out that ecological extinction, that they are like, effectively ecologically extinct. For sure. They're not a participating member of the natural biome. Yeah. Across most of their range. 100%.

Right. And you would, and your work was sort of addressing. Yeah. That like ecological extinction. Yep. And then you eventually got into a line of work that sort of like addresses it from a whole other angle. Right. Right.

What was the connection between the two things? Like you're working on behalf of wild animals and then you decided to, to get into ranching the amount of deeded land that you own. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. No, very, very well said. And so for me, it was, you know, I spent 10 years at this organization and just over time, the nonprofit environmental policy work, it's, it's frustrating because you lack control.

And so, like, the example I always give, you know, there's been this. pushed to restore Buffalo in central Montana in and around the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge and Missouri Breaks and blah blah. And the state did all this work to tee it up with a very, very, you know, start with a very small population. And, you know, and I'd meet with like a state agency scientist and a federal agency scientist. And I'd be like, you know, you guys need to do this. And they'd say, Matt, we couldn't agree more with you. But politically, that's a non-starter. And you go back to your office and you're like, what are we doing? Like they have these public meetings, people write letters, they have this whole thing. And it's a dog and pony show. Yeah. Because it's a

political decision that whoever the, the power that be is at that time is not going to make. And so I just, you feel like you're spinning your wheels. Yeah. And so I just started to get frustrated with that process. And at the same time, I, you know, and I, and, you know, conservation groups are, Super important. I respect the hell out of that work. I just found it wasn't for me. And I also found, like, big picture, I didn't think, I don't think that it, that work really moves the needle the way people think it does. And I say that because I, you know, explain that to me. You see these groups that, you know, you get these fundraising emails, you know, donate $50 to save the whales. Donate $50 to save the elephants. And so someone, someone, someone writes a check for $50. And they feel like, all right, I did my, I did my public duty for wildlife, biodiversity, conservation for the year.

And then the rest of their, in the rest of their life, they don't really think about it. Yeah. And so that $50, you know, it's like a, it's like a giant wildfire and, you know, putting an ounce of water on it. It doesn't do anything. Yeah. And so if we're really going to protect biodiversity, which, you know, we're in the middle of an extinction crisis, it has to come from how we produce things and how we consume things, like through the business world. And I just, that can't that just became very clear to me. And so I wanted to leave the nonprofit world, go into the for profit world. And, and I was really attracted but to food because, you know, when you think about it, we have billions of people on the planet. And if you're lucky,

you get to eat three meals a day. You fact that out across the billions of people on the planet and you realize very quickly that the production of food has enormous environmental and social consequences. And then very simply, I also, I just like I love all the Leopold. I love land. And so to be able to like work on a piece of a piece of ground that you can touch, smell, feel, watch it through the seasons, hopefully improve it, increase the biodiversity and then provide food for people that is, you know, amazing.

for the environment, amazing for them, great for biodiversity. Like, that just really appealed to me. And then, and, and, and, and so I had fallen in love with bison. And, and so that's why we, you know, there's, I always joke, like, there's some parallel universe where we're doing the same thing with grass fed beef. I just, I love bison and we wanted to do it with bison. And then also, you know, we still, uh, we've only got 400 or 500,000 bison in North America.

And so our herd, you know, it adds ultimately, it helps. it helps with the long-term conservation of the species. But yeah, so that's why we did it. That's one of the things that I've always admired about the producers and I've always defended producers like you because it helped, like it, you know, it puts the animals on the landscape and puts the animals where people can see them.

Absolutely. Do you know what I mean? And it's like, but it puts them on native range. Oh, dude. You know what I mean? Yeah, I couldn't agree more with that. Like there's so much fear. around Bison because they've been gone for so long.

Yeah, yeah. And so people are just scared of them, right? Like, I joked like early on. I'm like, people think that bison are going to like go down and rob the bank. Like with a, with, you know, like they're just evil. And then they're out there, like for on our ranch, they're out there. People see them and they're like, huh, they're just doing their thing. Yeah.

And so, yeah, that that's a big, I think about that a lot, like a big thing that we, I feel like a big service we provide is just comfort familiarity with the species that most people either never see or they're like it's only in Yellowstone. And so yeah, it's it's making people more comfortable with bison back on the landscape. Experience Harry Styles live in London, England at Wembley Stadium. This is Harry Styles. IR. Radio wants to send you and a mate across the pond with flights from Virgin Atlantic, hotel from trip central.ca, tickets, and once. $1,000 cash. Here we got it!

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I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed, and there was a full of blood. Oh my God, he doesn't have. have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper, from cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote

mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season two of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. It was funny because I have a deep suspicion of suspicion in some cases dislike of the captive-servid industry. Oh, yeah. Okay, like, because raisin deer, raisin elk, those aren't absent from the landscape.

Totally. Do you know what I mean? Like those are like ecologically viable creatures that are sort of like culturally ingrained and have people that, are willing to stand for them. There's organizations that defend their habitat, right? Biologists that work on their behalf. There's this whole like infrastructure of wild deer and elk support. I've always viewed the bison thing different because they're otherwise absent.

I think it's, you know, I know it fluctuate, fluctuate maybe by like a part of a percent over recent years, but 94 or 95 percent of the animals in existence, of the bison in existence. of the bison in existence are privately owned. 100%. If you scratch those off, you have, there's what you like I said, like half million of the animals. You,

you like scratch away the privately owned ones. And you're looking at a 95% reduction. Yeah. No, I, it's just like you've reduced it to next to nothing. Yeah. I'll take a step further.

I mean, one, I couldn't agree more. I hate game farms. And I, it's funny. I quote you all the time because when we met years ago when you spoke at the Montana Bison Association conference, you laid it out perfectly. You were like, I hate game farms.

Exactly what you just said. But bison is this weird. It's this unique thing where it makes sense. And we're not a game farm. We're a ranch. But we're, uh, you know, the importance of private ranches for Buffalo. And, and so yeah, it's like 90, something like 95% of, of the population of bison, North America are on ranches like are on ranches like ours. And then even the conservation herds

that, that are out there, the majority of those, almost all of them, aren't wildlife. Like to me, a wildlife species, I know you would agree, is it goes wherever the hell it wants to go. Yeah. And, and so like, whether it's Custer, Wind Cave, Teddy Roosevelt, these various parks, they're ultimately fenced, they're managed, they, you know, they round the bison up. And even Yellowstone, right? Like, they're not allowed to freely roam. And so if you really, like, if you really want to split hairs and say how many wild bison are out there, I mean, it's a fraction, a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a reason. did sort of a roundup of

well I try to define wild. Yeah. And it'd be like something that can cross political boundaries. Totally. Right. When you get down to hers that are allowed to cross political boundaries Yeah. Without management status changing

as they cross political boundaries. I mean, you get into like small handfuls. There's a handful in Alaska that can cross political boundaries. Yep. The Henry Mountains. I mean, you know, yeah, the north room of the grand Canyon. Yep. There's something that can cross political boundaries. But, um, and you could go on a name a few, but I mean, we're, we're talking about handfuls of animals. Yeah. Tiny, tiny,

number of animals. Yeah. Yeah. And they're, you know, they're doing some super cool work. We had a guest on and talking about there. They're doing some really cool work in Alaska. I listened to that one, you know, to, to, to bring in, uh, like a sort of phenotype, eco type of the animal called Woods Bison, yeah, bison into Alaska. Yeah. Um, which is cool work. But how, like, when you decided to go down this path, like, how did you even start getting into it? Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. And what was the sort of capital investment required?

Yeah. No. So it's a funny story. So literally, I'm not exaggerating. Because I worked on Bison at Yellowstone Bison, I have a, I had a Google alert for Yellowstone Bison. One day I get a Google alert. that there's a Bozeman Daily Chronicle article on the National Bison. The National Bison Association had just had their summer conference in Big Sky,

and they did something at Ted Turner's Flying D Ranch. And that's the producers. That's like the producer association. Exactly. I don't know if it's even, is National Bison Society active? I don't know. But either way.

Yeah. National Bison Association's producers. Exactly. Exactly. And so the article just said, that they had their summer conference in Big Sky, and that demand for bison meat was growing. They were looking for more producers.

And I literally read the article, and I was like, man, I'm like, that sounds so cool. Clearly not for me as a kid from Chicago. But for somebody, that's going to be awesome. And I just wonder, I went about my day. And then a couple months later, it was still like kicking around my brain. And I was like, God, I feel like there might be something there. But I was like, you know, to like,

give Buffalo this great life on a ranch. And because they haven't been domesticated, shipping them to slaughter is like super high stress. So there's like an ethical humane component to that. And then all that stress negatively impacts the quality of the meat. Can I want to tell you a story about that? I'll share your own. But I live in Miles City for a couple years.

And I live next to a guy that had a slaughter plant. Oh, yeah. Some days he was inspected. He had like some days on his schedule when he was federally inspected. And some days on his schedule. and he did custom slaughter. I remember telling me, man, he used to try and had quit bringing in,

bringing in bison for custom slaughter. You said they're just too crazy. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like to try to bring them into his facility. He would have had to change a bunch of stuff. It was like too chaotic to bring him into his facility. And then shipping them was very tough.

Yeah. And it's just exactly. It's super high strat. also lots of bruising you know you throw a bunch of bison on a truck and they're whether it's intentional or unintentional they're goring each other a lot of bruising he mentioned that and he eventually just got done with it yeah a lot of guys do that and so um so i was like yeah i just i don't want to that's just each to his or own that's not for me and then i read this this amazing book buffalo for the broken heart this memoir by dan o'brien

who uh who you know a lot of people bring that book up man it's it's an amazing book he started while Wild idea of Buffalo in South Dakota, huge hero of mine. And in that book, you know, I'm avid hunter. And in that book, he talks about,

so he pioneered the modern day field harvesting of bison. Okay. Which, you know, you've seen it because you were up on the ranch with your kids at one day when I field harvested one.

Oh, and then obviously the Clovis experiment. Yep. But it's basically just instead of, you just reverse the process. So instead of shipping him to slaughter, like yesterday, I just drive out to wherever there are that day.

And it's a headshot. with a copper bullet from like 12 yards and it's instant. Like as ethical and humane as it gets, the meat's amazing. And so when I read literally, when I read about field harvest in that book, it was an instant light bulb moment. I was like,

I didn't know this existed. This is the way to do it. And I know there are people that are going to resonate with this. Because I just kept meeting people that were like, I've seen food ink. I've read Michael Pollan. I'm done with meat. Yeah. And I don't hunt.

But if my neighbor, kills an elk and gives me 30 pounds of elk, I'm like, oh my God, it's like the greatest thing ever. I'm like, oh, so you're not done with meat. You're done with like the factory farming hell that you see in documentaries, which I totally get. So, so Dan O'Brien's book is what sent us on this path. Yeah. And then my next step was like, okay, I know absolutely nothing. So I literally went to Google and typed in bison wrenching consultant. And then there's amazing guy, Roland Cruz, who lives in Bozeman. And it's just a general, like, regenerative ranching consultant. He works a bunch with cattle ranchers, a bunch with bison people.

And we met for lunch in Bozeman. And I was telling him my story. And he kind of cut me off. And he's like, you should, I teach this holistic management workshop on a bison ranch. You should come to it. And I took it in two ways. One, like, this would be very beneficial for you. and then two is like a test.

Like, are you a dreamer? Or are you wasting my time or are you serious? So I went to his, I went to his workshop and then I came back like all excited. Like to Sarah, I was like, we, we got to do this.

But I, and I still had this like, uh, you know, insecurity or just kind of, you know, uh, anxiety around it of like,

I just thought if you didn't grow up ranching, you couldn't be a rancher. But I'm like, we'll just keep putting one foot in front of the other. that's a really yeah that's pretty reasonable it is man and you know you brought something that I wish I had I came up but I didn't mention it if if if you you folks listening have ever seen our YouTube video where we worked with some anthropologists and archaeologists to do an experiment with using stone tools to butcher that that was yeah mass place yep yeah so I should

have made that connection because because people people love that video I know that was one of your animals on your place yep that was yeah um And then we got to eat all that meat. That was good. Yeah, that was, that was, that was, that was, that was such an amazing day. I just, I'll never forget, like, that morning I said to Sarah, I'm like, look, like, I don't know what time I'm going to be home, but like, 11 midnight, like these, the boys are going to be working with headlights.

Just, I'm just like, that, that's the deal. And like, four o'clock, you guys were like, we're good. Yeah, I couldn't believe it either. Bones were crystal clean. Like, it was, it was so impressive. It worked out good. The other point you made that I wanted to comment on. is like not growing up around it.

Yeah. Because that's a thing, when I hang out with buddies of mine that grew up around livestock, be like cattle guys, horse guys, whatever, when they look at something,

they see a thing that I don't see. Totally. Do you know what I mean? Like buddies of mine that grew up on, you know, they grew up horseback, right? Yeah.

I look at a horse, I'd just see a horse. You know what I mean? I'm like a horse. Maybe I'll get like, then it's got an old vibe to it. Or I might get that it's got like a somewhat unpredictable vibe to it. Oh, yeah.

They look at it and they see like its whole history. Totally. They see the history of its parents. You know what I mean? They like they just see things. Not to mention. And like with cattle like, you know, some cows standing there. I'm like, there's a cow standing over there.

They're like, something's wrong with that cow. Yeah. That cow's got whatever. No. The cow is this. The cow, like you can't. I've always felt you'll, you'll never catch them. Nope.

You'll never catch up to them. No chance. Not to mention, like, you know, they could be standing there and, you know, the truck breaks down. And they're like, I've got bailing twine, a toothbrush, a can of WD 40, and a tin of tobacco. Yeah. And they'll, they'll fix the truck. Yeah. Like, like, mine are neighbors.

They're amazing humans. And like, and yeah, I'll never, you know, I will never have. their level of knowledge. Yeah, you, you'll never catch them. No chance. And I, and I, I respect the hell out of them like so much. I've learned a ton from them. Um, but, but the interesting thing.

So when we were, when we were going down, you know, I literally, I, I, I could, I would say to Sarah, I'm like, I'm like, I think we can do this, but, but I feel like there's something someone's not telling us. Mm. Cause like, if you don't grow up ranching, you can't be a rancher. And, uh, and then I met a couple of guys. who were like me, no, no background whatsoever. And they were like, you're going to make mistakes, like 100%.

But not having any background in agriculture, there's actually, there's a huge advantage to that. Because you have no, no bad habits to unlearn. And, you know, there's no, like my last name is Skogland. There's no like, this is the Skoglin way of ranching. This is how we do it. We just say, like, what's best for the animal, the land and the business? We'll do that.

Yeah. And so, so yeah. So we, and I, I mean, we could have a four-hour podcast about, I mean, I burned a truck to the ground. I broke my ankle. The bison got out. Been stuck in the mud, rolled a four-week. I mean, I could just go on and on. All the things you screwed up.

All the things. Like, I remember early on laughing with one of my neighbors, I was like, after one of my, you know, epic, you know, screw ups. I was like, I'm like, I think you guys have a bet down at the bar of when the Skoglins are going to go bankrupt. I was like, and now I think there's a second bet of when, when's Matt going to die? And there was another time where a neighbor, I did something and I was telling my neighbor about it. And he looks to me dead serious. And he goes, Matt, I'm concerned that you lack agricultural caution. He goes, what's your wife's cell phone number? I think, we need to have her number.

That's good. And I look back. These are cattle producers. One was a cattle producer. The other one is he rebuilds cars and trucks. Got it. But I look back those first couple years and I'm like, I feel like it's a miracle. I'm alive.

Yeah. But again, on the flip side, in this, this has talked a lot about, this has talked a lot about currently in ranching because a lot of ranches are being passed from, you know, the older generation to people our age. And there could be some tension where it's like, well, I'm going to mix things up. And the parents or the in-laws or whatever, like, no, no, we've done it this way for a hundred years. You're not changing it. So there's definitely some advantages to having no background in agriculture.

But, but yeah, I was, I felt like, yeah, I just felt like we were missing something that someone wasn't telling us something that that summer of 2018, we were getting started. But yeah, we've learned. One thing you were probably missing was land. Ha, yeah. So that's a, so, so, so, so we, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, within an hour of Bozeman, because our community's here. And at that point, we have, we have two kids. And at that point, our, our, our daughter had just turned.

one. Our son was like four and and she was like, I'm just not starting over in Colorado or eastern Montana or wherever. And so I looked for land and like the dream died very quickly. But I'm a stubborn person because you couldn't find anything. Couldn't find anything. Oh, just so like it's impossible. And it's just like so expensive. So expensive. I just came back from a state. I'm not even going to name the state and like that's where you need to go. Yeah. No. I'm. I'm just, Yeah. It's like, I was like, I finally, like, it's like an awesome area. And then looking at land prices, I'm like, it hasn't gotten crazy.

Yeah. No. So we were lucky. This is, so this is like March of 2018. And I'm stubborn. So I just kept looking online and looking online. And then I came across this ranch broker's website. And there were these three parcels up in the Shield Valley, which was our, that was our ideal area.

Because we love it up there. it's beautiful and as you know i mean it's hardcore ranching country yeah and we you know so so there's no threat um not not a big threat of like subdivision that sort of thing and um but when i came across this website i the the prices were so low and the website was a little you know kind of low tech i was like i was like this this has got to be like uh this got to be from like 2004 and the guy just never took it down and but and so i called him his name was don van der man so i i i called him the name was don van der called them expecting to like, you know, this number has been disconnected. And he was like, Don Vanaman. And I was like, holy shit. I was like, hey, I'm like, I'm like, Don. I'm like, I'm on your website.

and there's these three parcels up in the Shield Valley. I'm like, are those for sale? And he's like, you betcha. I'm like, can I go look at him? He's like, whenever the hell you want. I was like, that Saturday took the kids up expecting to find like a toxic landfill in the middle. And we, got there and I was like, like, played out gravel quarries. And I was like, holy shit,

like this is spectacular. So we came back and I was like, Sarah, I'm like, we, next weekend, we got to go look at this. And we,

you know, we did our due diligence. So we kept looking online to see if something else made more sense. That was that, that, our land, it's the only land we looked at in person. Nothing ever,

nothing else even came close to make us go look at it. And by late May, we were like, you know, and this was pre-COVID, pre-Covine, or Yellowstone TV show. But even then, we were like,

the way Bozeman's going, if we don't get this under contract, all this work goes up on a shelf. And the way Bozeman's going, it's never coming off that shelf. Yeah. And so we got it under contract and got as long a closing date as possible. We're able to pull it together and get across the finish line.

But if we didn't get that, like if we had, if we'd waited a year to, years there's we we wouldn't be sitting here like it was that it was we found a needle in the haystack in 2018 and we're damn grateful for it yeah you know what i wanted to tell you about is a randall night month or two ago we went down to cody wyoming yep and we gave a talk about we we gave it was in we were in coordination with the buffalo bill cody museum yeah and we went down the road do because they needed we needed a little bit of bigger space went down the road like

there's a hotel the big convention area just like a community thing yeah we gave a talk about our buffalo hyde hunters audio work called the hide hunters right uh there was some dude like there's some dudes there that were real anxious through the whole thing like they were there for the comment section yeah yeah you know like oh yeah you know when you get you ever address a audience oh yeah yeah so you'll sometimes if you know you know you know you know you you kind of like doing your talk or whatever, you become aware of certain figures, you know? 100% that are on fire.

Oh, yeah. And it was like a guy that's, there's three of them that were there to, to challenge me as an outspoken advocate, as an outspoken Buffalo advocate. Yeah. Right. Like I just,

I routinely bring up my conviction. that we should be doing more and more places to welcome the animals back as wildlife. Totally. Okay. Like, I bring this up. He wanted to challenge that. What was surprising to me is they were producers. Huh.

And I always felt that there was like... Producers, but bison producers. They were bison ranchers. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And I always felt that like that bison ranchers were first and foremost, like, enthusiasts for the species. Yeah. And they got into it for love of the animal.

but they don't he didn't they don't like that talk yeah which i thought was so weird and he kept saying if my animals got out and telling me all the damage that like school children wouldn't be safe yeah if his animals got out i'm like and you know the kind of i i engaged him for a while then i said i'm just gonna yeah like we're gonna have to have other people ask questions yeah i engage them for a minute on it and it was sort of like i'm like i'm like i'm not a of anybody suggesting that your animals be let go. Right.

You're setting up a straw man argument about your animals getting out and attacking school children on the road. Like that's not what we're discussing. But was surprised by that perspective among the producer community, which I think is an exception rather

than the rule. Yeah. But one of the biggest things, I'm bringing up this whole convoluted story to ask this question of like, you have, once you get land, you're not keeping them in with like three-strand barbed wire. Right. Right. So, so you, like, when you got property, you, you have to be thinking about how to, like,

really confine them. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's a, I mean, that's a thing. Yeah. That was, that was part of this guy's deal is if they're out. Right. How you're not going to stop them from going anyway.

Totally. You know, was kind of his argument, right? Yep. Yeah, no. So we, um, when, when we got the land under contract at the end of May, with the closing date in September, I went into what I called sponge mode, just trying to absorb and learn as much as possible. Uh, and I got to visit different ranches, got to visit one of Ted Turner's ranches.

And they're this, this great rancher, um, he actually has bison and cattle. Okay. On different pastures up in Malt, Montana, north of the laurel. And he connected me with a fencing guy that he had trained on his fencing. And that's what we put on our place. And it's awesome. So our fencing, people look at it and they're like, this keeps buffalo in? Like, are you like, because it's, it just looks super weak.

Okay. It's, our perimeter fence, five wire high tinsel, prong, all wildlife friendly. So pronghorn can go under, deer elk and moose can go over. And the middle wire is hot. and it's ultimately a psychological barrier. Like they touch that. Explain some of that terminology for people. Like, like, sure.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Pronghorn go under, do you go over? Like talk about that for me. Yeah. So, okay. So, um,

so, you know, pronghorn, iconic species in the West that, uh, uh, you know, second,

second fastest animal on earth behind the cheetah. They live, you know, their defense mechanism is their speed. So they like, to hang out in flat open country and see what's common and they'll outrun it. And for whatever reason, they, they can, they can jump fences, but like a lot of them don't know that. You see it now and then. Yep. You see it very rare. And so they crawl under fences. And there's a lot of work being done

to remove the bottom wire on ranches because in, in big winters, they'll find dozens of pronghorn, dead pronghorn piled up in the corner of a of a ranch or public ground, whatever, because the snow drifted there and they can't crawl under the fence and they don't know they can go over. So our fence, so high tinsle, it's just a smooth wire and it's got a flex to it. So deer elk and moose can jump over, pronghorn can crawl under. I see mule deer do both. Like they sometimes crawl under and sometimes jump over. Yeah, because they'll get little dugout areas and they'll keep you.

it and using it and it'll eventually get like a little trough under there. Exactly. Yep. And, and then when I say the middle wire is hot, so it's, it means it's, it's electrified. So we, our whole fence runs off solar and that middle wire is hot and it, and, and when a, if a bison touches it, they get shocked and they're super smart. So they learn to avoid it. And then that behavior is passed on down through the herd. So they all avoid the fence. but I say it's a psychological barrier because if they wanted to run through it, they could run through it like we put our arm through a spider web. It would take nothing. So I always say like if you really want a buffalo proof fence,

you need like a 14 foot brick wall. Because any, even if it's barbed wire, woven wire, like they could bust through it. But the great thing you have going for you with bison is their herd instinct is so, is still so, strong, you know, tens of thousands of years, hundreds of thousands of years of evolution have

programmed into them safeties with the herd. They always want to be together. And so it ultimately comes down to your management. As long as they've got plenty of grass and water, they're not looking over the fence line. And they want to be together. And it's funny because this time of year is when we have issues because the grass is starting to grow. They're excited about that. And the youngsters, like yearlings, they'll periodically get on the wrong side of the fence. And I would think that they're like, when I was 16, it's like, whoo, I'm going to raise hell and go explore. And it's the opposite. You can feel their stress.

They're walking the fence. Like, how do I get back to the herd? Because I'm vulnerable by myself. So, yeah. So again, and that's like another example of like people were skeptical of our fencing. And now they see the bison on the right side of the fence. They're grazing. They see me field harvesting them.

And they're like, yeah, we're cool with this. Experience Harry Styles live in London, England at Wembley Stadium. This is Harry Styles. IHard Radio wants to send you in a mate across the pond with flights from Virgin Atlantic, hotel from TripCentral.ca, tickets, and $1,000 cash. Download the free IHartRadio app. Listen to Iheart new music for 10 minutes. Enter to win.

Every day is another chance to see Harry Styles. Very excited to see you with the show. Kiss all the time, disco occasionally available now. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen.

but when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut,

and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you do. did and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy to use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. How big is a bull? So, you know, a big mature bull is well over 2,000 pounds. They're massive and their heads.

I had to, I had to, I had to, I had to field harvest a big bull. last year Memorial Day weekend by myself. And their heads must weigh like 200 pounds. Like just, they're massive animals. And no separate fencing for those. No, we just,

we run it as one herd year round. Yeah. Just, you know, because, and the thought process there is from a, from a land health standpoint, if you zoom out,

you know, a thousand years ago, you know, we had tens of millions of buffalo. tens of millions of elk, pronghorn. So the entire West evolved with grazing animals. Removing animals from the landscape, totally unnatural. Yeah.

Like the West evolved with animals, full stop. Can't argue that. But the way that they grazed, like the Gallatin Valley, thousands of animals would have come in here and they would have grazed, pooped, peed, wallowed, just made a mess of the place and then left for a long time. So the West evolved. To the point where mythologies, like native mythologies were formed around where do they go? Where do they go?

And in many cases, if you look at like Plains tribes, in many cases you see there are literal interpretations of these, but then there's also these stories as parable. But it's that they went into a hole in the ground. Yep. Yep. Right? They went into a mountain. because they would be so gone. Yep.

Yeah. And then all of a sudden, they're back. Yeah. And yeah. It would inspire like mythologies to explain like where do they go? Yeah. No, I, I'm endlessly fascinated by that stuff. Like your buddy Dan Flores been on here has his own media podcast.

Like his book, Wild New World was like, that just blew my mind. Yeah. Like just over and over. And it's interesting. I was just reading, I mean, I'm a little late to the game, but I'm finally reading Braiding Sweetgrass, amazing book. And she just, the chapter I just finished, because the other thing with what you're talking about was it was like, where did they go? And it was like, how do we get them back?

Like, what do we do? And I was just reading that some tribes in the Pacific Northwest had the same thing around salmon, where they would light, light the grass on fire on a cliff along the ocean, basically sending a signal out to the salmon, time to come back. Oh, which I thought was super cool. And I didn't know that. Man, I got to tell you, this is such an old, this is like from way back in the earliest, earliest days of this show of this podcast. It's probably one of my favorite segments we ever did as we were interviewing a, uh, uh, Mukushi. He was from the Makushi tribe in South America in Guyana. Huh.

And it was the second time I'd gone down there and hung out with them. the first time I went and spent time with the macushi they hunted a lot of tape here they had a white-lipped tape here so there's three sorry I'm not tape here a peckery so we have like a havelina is a collared packery

there's a chock-oan packery and there's a white-lipped packery huh okay the the white-lip packery lives in is huge hurts so like you know like collard peckeries or havelinas you know you'd like a big group of those a dozen, 20, whatever, white-lit peckery would be hundreds.

Got it. And they would periodically have white-lit peckery move through their village areas, and they would harvest a whole bunch of these white-lipped peckries. They hadn't seen me in a long time. He was telling me, and he's telling me this on the podcast, he's explaining that there's another village that's very jealous of our village.

And they trained a shaman. and that shaman has apparently locked our white-lit peckries into a mountain. We are training up a new shaman who's developing the skill set necessary to unlock them from the mountain to bring them back. And he's just like telling us all about this on the show. So cool. And to have it be that it was like that, you know, which you imagine to be an ancient, wisdom. Totally. on a thing like

a podcast. Yeah. Always just struck me as yeah. I mean, I want to go like refine that bit and talk about it. But it was the same thing. I was like, where did they go? Where did they go? How do we get them back? And yeah, and like the creation stories. I just find all that stuff like so interesting, fascinating. I got y'all messed up. You're talking about

how you, Gallatin Valley. That grazing practice there and then not there. Yeah. So they'd come in, make a mess the place and then leave for a long time. So the West evolved with high intensity, short duration impact, followed by a long recovery. So we have our ranch. So we're trying to, they call it biomimicry, just mimicking nature. And that's what we're doing on a vastly smaller scale on our ranch. But we have it cross fence into a whole bunch of different pastures. And then the herd just moves around. And so whatever pasture they're in, every other pasture is being rested. And this time of year, it's particularly important because we've got all sorts of nesting grassland birds, waterfowl, sandhill cranes.

And what happens is you create this mosaic, which is what would have happened a thousand years ago, where you've got stuff they haven't hit yet. And by late June, that grass gets pretty tall. Stuff they grazed, you know, maybe a month ago. And that's like medium. And then stuff they just hammered that's like a Walmart parking lot. And because the entire West evolved. this for birds depending on whether they're you know uh nesting raising chicks feeding like they use

all those different habitats differently and so um so so so that's what we do on our place so we run it as one herd year round so wherever the herd is the rest of the ranch is being rested so the bulls always stay with them yep yeah and and do they are they like even though in captivity are they still following that like they're running in june in july or do you You wind up having calves dropping year-round. When we started, we had some calves dropping in the fall. But now we've, they've, now they, we've gotten to a point just naturally where, yes, our, our herd acts the exact same as Yellowstone. So they, they, they, the rut, they breed from mid-July through the end of August.

Okay. And then they carve mid-April through the end of August. May. They shed their winter coats in the spring, grow their winter coats back in the fall. And then the, and then, you know, so a bison herd, it's a matriarchal society. So you've got a lead cow that calls the shots. And there's a whole pecking order there. And the bulls fall in line. But once they're like three, four, five, they leave the herd and kind of, they're like, I'm my own man now. Okay. And, and so, Um, we saw that on our place where, uh, you know, the, the herd would be here. And then like, the breeding bulls would be like 400 yards over here. Okay. And then you'll, I think you'll find this interesting. So when we started, we had breeding bulls because that's how you do it. And the breeding, the breeding, the breeding bowls are the ones that cause problems. Not from a safety standpoint. Like, they're, they're like, I mean, I've never had an issue with one of our bulls. But because they,

they have this, you know, I'm my own man mentality. everything's going great and then one morning you wake up and they're like, I'm walking to the crazy mountains today and nothing's going to stop me. He's striking out looking for whatever you can find.

And then for us, it becomes extremely stressful. The big thing for me, it's not like losing a bull or like the economic consequence of that. It's that we have great relationships with our neighbors and we take that very seriously and we've earned their trust.

And so if bulls start leaving and walking all over, the neighbors, rightfully so, would be like, what's going on, Matt? Like, have you lost control of your animals? And so while I was kind of struggling with this a year ago, I'm always reading, listening to podcasts, trying to stay on top of the best available science around modern day ranching.

And I listened to a podcast with one of Ted Turner's ranch managers, and he was saying the way on a couple of Turner's ranches, they've moved away from breeding bulls. And the theory is that with breeding bulls, it's unnatural because it's humans selecting the animal for what humans like. And so bison, they're sexually matured,

they're sexually matured too. Okay. So they got rid of all their breeding bulls, and they let all the two-year-olds in there and just let nature work it out. And the theory is the biggest, strongest, highest sex drive bulls are the ones that are going to breed. And that's who you want to breed.

So when we had, so when our last breeding bull, how is that not a, if he's a breeding bull, why is he not a breeding bull? So because, so before, I guess, I guess, I guess so the, the others. Or is it an age class? It's an age. Exactly. The other system, you'd have like a six-year-old bull and an eight-year-old bull. I see.

Which are literally more than twice the size of that two-year-old. And that's who's most likely to strike out. Exactly. And so when I heard that and then this had this bull that left last Memorial Day weekend, I was like, we're done with breeding bulls. And I just, I'm all about having our ranch and our herd be as natural as possible. And so that really appealed to me. And so last summer was our first experiment with it.

And it was so cool because in June, you've got all these two-year-old bulls running around. And it's like kind of whatever. And then by late July, there was one guy who I was like, oh, you're the man. Like he was fighting off other bulls. Like he clearly was the guy. Yeah, yeah. And then we work our animals once a year in the winter where we move them into corral and,

you know, ear tag the calves and we pre-checked the females. So I was kind of curious to see what this experiment would do. And last year was our highest breed up rate ever. So if all of our cows that were supposed to be bred, only one wasn't. and and so now this you know letting letting a bunch of two-year-olds take care of it is our path going forward yeah it's kind of cool huh did you find like when you've had them break out and go do they want to go a certain direction or is it random it's random it is it's totally random um and and it fortunately it you know it's only happened a handful of times and i remember the the the first the big one

we had three breeding bulls they all left and i was like freaking out and i called a mentor and he's like look he's like i know you're freaking out and you want to go chase him he's like that's the worst thing you could do yeah he's like there's just nothing you can do and he's like i'm convinced they have a homing instinct and like they're going to come back and this was on a friday went out friday night couldn't find him or didn't see him saturday morning not there saturday night not there Sunday morning. I'm like on the edge of like, you know, panic attack, not there.

Sunday afternoon, there they are. Like they never left. And I was like, you sons of bitches? Really? Yeah. And, uh, but yeah, no, they have like a homing instance where they, they come back. Do you, uh, do you get scared around those big bulls? No.

No. So you don't, you don't have, you don't do anything. Like, you just walk, you'd walk right up to. Well, I, I should say no with an asterisk, which is I, I, I, you know, I wouldn't, like, I would never walk up and try to scratch. one by the year. Sure. It would kill me.

But you'd be out doing your work and yeah. I mean, I kind of, I always, um, I've, I've been charged a couple times by our lead cow. Um, I mean, like, like, like, like, she was coming. She was coming. Yeah. This was not a game where I had to dive over a fence, dive into the truck. So now I always make sure that the truck or side by side is relatively nearby, but you can, you can read their body language.

And yeah, the big bulls, non-event, never had an issue like zero. It's the, it's the old cows that you got to watch out for. That's who's coming. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the first one, just a funny story, it was our first summer and I was doing a pasture move. And when I move them, I pull them.

I don't push them. So like, I get their attention and they're so smart, they know what I'm doing. So they follow me to the next pasture where there's a whole bunch of fresh grass weight. But this day, there was this wetland, and I had to get on the other side of the wetland to move them across. And I did it on foot. And I had had zero issues up to this point. And it's this beautiful spring day. The whole herd's walking in front of me.

And I'm like, you know, and every day that I'm out there, it's never lost on me that I'm a kid from Chicago. Yeah. I'm like, I will never get used to it. Like, hopefully I live to be like 90. When I'm 89, I'll wake up and be like, this is crazy. I can't believe I do this. Like, it's just, you know, and so I'm like walking and like the mountains are covered in snow. And I'm like, man, I'm like, I'm the bison whisper.

Like, look at this, you know. And they're all, I'm just looking at all these butts. And then all of a sudden, it like took a second to register. And this number 440 is coming like full tilt. I was like, holy shit. And I ran, I mean, I must have run like a three nine 40 to the fence. And I did this awkward, crazy Superman dive over the fence.

And she stopped and was like, pawn at the ground. And the first thing I did was look up and down the road to make sure no neighbor saw. Because it would be like just more, more humiliation from that. But ever since that, I'm like, wow, that was a close call.

But yeah, it's really the old cow is the only ones that you have to worry about. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So tell me how the sale process. like what is a what is a animal that you know how are you making your determination like who's going to stay around as breeding stock and replacement heifers?

Yep. Right. Like how many how many calves do you get out of a cow? Sure. How do you determine well I'm going to sell this many? You know what I mean? Like what's all that dynamic? Like I guess herd dynamics or demographics.

What's that look like? Yeah. So. so so so we so we we we we expect we had a significant expansion last summer which is exciting um so our you know our we're we're we're now trying to figure out what those numbers look like okay but for the last several years the easiest way to explain it is like June 1 to June 1 so June one last year we had let's say 55 cows with a calf by their side. So 55 pairs, 55 yearlings, and 55 two-year-olds. Over the course of the year

I field harvest basically all of the two-year-olds, keep a few replacement heifers, because we know of a few open cows. And then June 1 this year, we should have 55 cows with a calf by their side. And then last year's calves become yearlings. The yearlings become two-year-olds. We just do it again. Okay. And then, and so basically, And then when we when we work the animals in the winter, any open, non-bred cow immediately becomes a meat animal. And for two reasons or for three reasons. One, we're not Ted Turner. We don't have 110,000 acre ranch.

Two, we're working to build just a super healthy, self-sufficient herd where they thrive on our landscape. the cows have a calf in April, May. They're bred back in July and August, and they just do it year after year. And if any year, they don't get bread, they're out of here. Okay. And, um,

you got to have something to sell to support the whole thing. Yeah. And then the third one is our demand. Like we have, we, our demand exceed supply. Oh, it does?

Yeah. So we, so we, so we, you have to turn away business. Not necessarily. Not turned away business. business we just we always have a long wait list okay um and um and i i do very little

traditional sales and marketing because we've just we've got these amazing customers we've got this amazing customer base it's very loyal i mean at the end of the day i always say it's like we could have you know the prettiest bison the most beautiful mountains cute kids great storytelling but if the meat tastes like shit, no one's, no one's gonna buy from us. Yeah. Right?

Like you buy a quarter bison, 85 pounds of bison meat, and you eat your way through it. At the end of that, when you reorder, like, to me, that's a great sign that they're like, that was worth them to do it again.

Yeah. And so, so basically our meat animals are essentially all of our two-year-olds and then open cows. And that, that's it. Yeah.

Got it. How many, How many calves will the cow, is a cow good for? Or you haven't hit it yet? Yeah. No, we haven't hit the max. Right. But I mean, when we, so when we started it, so our bison arrived January 2019,

we bought all of them from these two awesome ranches just west of Shoto along the Rocky Mountain front. And, you know, and so some of those cows are now, like 15, 16 years old, still having a calf every spring. Oh. Read back July and August. It's unbelievable. What about twins?

We've had a few cases. We've had a few sets of twins. It's rare. Do they thrive? In our case, yes. I've always been nervous because you hear these stories the way mom picks one. And I've watched with a close eye. And to my knowledge, all of our twins have made it.

Like the way, like when they first start calving, like right now, like I was out there last night and we've got, you know, there were a couple calves born yesterday. it's very obvious to tell whose calf is with which mom. Like the moms are amazing. Like those calves are like under their chin. But through the summer, once you've got, you know,

50, 60 calves running around and they're feeling a little bolder and they're running. You can't keep track of who's who. Yeah. But to my knowledge, like I watched those twins very closely early on. And then at some point, just never noticed and never found a dead calf. So do you,

do you let them self wean? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So you never have to pull them off. Yeah. It's like, so like, because you're only selling two year olds. Well, the main thing is we're just, we're not, we run it as one herd year round. And so there's lots of things we do that are like not traditional. But I look at it. I'm like, weaning, weaning stressful. The science is clear that the longer that calf, whether it's an elk calf, a black angus or a pronghorn, like the longer that that calf or a faun. and a pronghorn, the longer that animal's on mom, the healthier that animal is going to be for the rest of its life.

Yeah. And so I was like, and then weaning is stressful. It's time intensive, labor intensive. For you. Yeah. And so I was like, why would we we we wean? So we don't wean at all. We just, we let mom take care of that.

And we're not selling live animals. We run it as one herd. So yeah. So we don't, we don't wean at all. We just let mom do it. When, when you go out to field harvest one, do you know who like you, because you, you got numbers and you're watching the whole thing. Occasionally, but very rare.

So typically it's like if I'm driving out there in August, like in August, I know I'm going to field harvest a two-year-old bull. And it's the first two-year-old bull that provides me with the perfect shot. And the perfect shot is, because you don't know who's like, you don't, like, you're not, genetically testing them. You don't know what bull is doing what. Yeah. Yeah, no, just totally. So I

just drive out and and so the perfect shot is a bull that's like standing kind of on an angle like broadside looking at me 10 to 15 yards away, head up and then I aim an inch above the eyes and it's just, I mean, when I pull the trigger, it lights out. Like people always say

they're like, oh man, you know, I love your ranch because, you know, the bison only have one bad day. And I'm like, oh, no, no. I'm like, no bad day. I'm like, they're literally standing there. Like yesterday, this bull, he's standing there, grass in his mouth next to his buddy, looking at me. They know me.

They know the truck. Just kind of like, you know, chewing his, chewing his grass. And then it's just instant outer space. And so, yeah. So, but, and then if I have a group of two-year-old bulls, I'll look them over and see, like, who's the most developed and pick him out. But it's funny. I mean, I've had multiple times where, let's just say,

you know, number 426. I'm like about to shoot him. And then he moves. And then 32 walks in. I'm like, oh, I guess I'll take you. And then boom. And then I'll be out a couple of days later. And 426 will walk by.

I was like, man, you have no idea. Like, you came that close. So, yeah. Experience Harry Styles live in London, England at Wembley Stadium. This is Harry Styles. IHart Radio wants to send you and a mate across the pond with flights from Virgin Atlantic, hotel from TripCentral.Ca, tickets, and $1,000 cash. Here we got that!

Download the free IHart Radio app. Listen to IHart New Music for 10 minutes. Enter to win. Every day is another chance to see Harry Styles. Very excited to see you with the show. Kiss all the time, disco occasionally available now. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps Game Calls and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts.

Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut.

I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out prime cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. And then you gut of yourself. Yeah, so my process is, so if I'm just doing one, drive it. out, boom, drop it. And, well, I said, back up. So part of our thing is connecting people to where their food comes from and demystifying the death process involved in food production and consumption. Because most places, you know, the death part, it's locked in the basement,

padlocked, poured over with concrete. And in our case, I talk about how, like in our case, the death is beautiful. You know, it's like death is essential to life. And we're all killing shit, whether it's for what we eat, what we drive, what we wear, the phones in our pockets. Like, we're all killing stuff. It's just whether you're aware of it or not. And in our case, that bison, like yesterday, conceived on the ranch, born on the ranch,

lived his whole life on the ranch, standing there with his buddy, grass in his mouth, lights out. I mean, it's as good as it gets. and I lost my train of thought. What was? What was I asking about? Yeah, you were asking about, you got them yourself. Oh, yeah, got myself.

Yeah. So bison draw, oh, so part of it's connecting people that where their food comes from. So when I drive out yesterday, I take a picture of the herd, and then boom, drop the bison, and then I take a picture of a dead bison on the ground, never anything bloody or gory.

I make very, you know, but very clear, like that's a dead bison. and then I lifted up with the, the bail bed, which is a flat bed on the back of a pickup that has two arms that can go out. It's built for feeding round bales. And then I take two six foot toe straps and put one around the front legs, one around the hind legs. I lift it up and slit its throat to bleed it. And then I drive and then drive it to a different pasture, cut the head off and save the tongue and the cheeks.

and then I got it. Well, you gave me some of those cheeks one time too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You gave me a tongue the other day. Yeah. You know what I did with that? That one I just boiled down. Yeah. I put it in a slow cooker. Okay. So I can slip the skin on it. Sometimes I'll smoke and whatever, but I just did that so I can slip the skin and then cut it and fried it like, like spam. Oh. Oh my God. It's good, man. I was crisping it on both. So it's crispy, but soft in the middle. I'm embarrassed. I've never cooked it. The only dung of ours that I've had. you, I gave you a few extra tongues and as, and as a just kindness of your heart, you, you cooked a couple for us and you smoked them and cured them. And, uh, and you were like,

just slice it thin in an oil with some pan. And our kids, like, they've grown up, eating heart. Like when I, like, our dog had an injury a couple years ago and I was cooking him some bison heart to like boost morale. And my kids were like, uh, came in the kitchen. They're like, are you cooking bison heart? And they just start grabbing at it. I'm like, you assholes? Like, that's for Ed. So they're like very adventurous eaters, but I was like, tongue, maybe that'll weird them out. And so I just, hey, guys, are having bison steak. And I sliced it. And I'll never, one of them said, they took like two bites and they go, Dad, this is meat candy. And then the other one said, can we eat this every night? It was like,

anyways. So yeah, save the tongue in the cheeks. And then I got it. And I save heart. liver, kidneys, hanging tender, get it back on the truck, drive to Amsterdam, they skin it, and they cut the tail off. So it's the tongue, cheeks, heart, liver, kidneys, hanging tender. And you hand that over. Hand that over. That goes on like an organ tree. And then they, and then they skin it, dry age it, cut it, wrap it, et cetera. And they, and then the hide goes to, you sell the hide? Yeah. So, um, we have a guy that we work with. with in between three forks and Butte, and he's like, he's a hide guy. Like he builds boats, TPs, lodges, all sorts of things. And so he'll, he'll either meet me at Amsterdam and buy

the hide, like fresh when it's skinned, or I'll throw it in a bag, put it in the freezer, and he'll pick it up later. And then occasionally we get a tanned one back and we'll sell that as a blanket, but they're kind of far and few between that we get back. Got it. Yeah. Um, you know, I don't have you ever heard this, but at, at the Folsom kill site. Yep. The Ice Age. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's a ice age buffalo kill site.

Yep. In that bone bed, there's no, um, I always thought it was interesting. In that bone bed, there are no tail bones. Huh. Cause they, yeah. Hall them away with the hides. Yeah. No, that, the tails, you know, it's, it's like a shank.

You got to slow cook it in liquid for a long time, but it's the flavor's, like, insane. Yeah. And it's a good handle for. dragging the hide around. Exactly. Yeah. So they do that.

They cut the thing off. The hide goes to get tanned. Yep. And then you have, but then you have dudes that have ordered the stuff. Yeah. So who ships that out? You ship it out? We do it.

Yeah. So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, percent direct to consumer. I'd say half our customers are in Montana, half all over the country. So yesterday, so we have one employee, Ethan Davidson, amazing person, huge meat eater fan. He works two days a week for us and he's in charge of like the whole fulfillment process. So the way it works is somebody goes on our website. They put a deposit down for a quarter or a half or a whole. And then, oh yeah, to go full circle, when it's at Amsterdam, skinned and they cut it down the backbone.

I take a picture of that. And then the day after the field harvest, I'll send those pictures to our customers and say, you know, hey, Steve, I field harvested your bison yesterday morning on the ranch, beautiful spring morning,

blah, blah, a few photos attached. And then there's the herd on the ground. And so it's just like they, you know, sometimes people don't reply, but most people love it.

Yeah. They can see it coming. They can see it. It's like connecting them, You know, it's like, this is the animal you'll be eating. And, you know, we're just all about transparency and, and connecting people to the process. And so, so yeah, they skin it, dry age it. Amsterdam's amazing, just great butchers.

And then they ultimately, you know, it's beautifully packaged, wrapped, frozen, labeled, boxed. Ethan goes and picks it up. And if it's local person, he delivers it. And then for people around the country, we ship on Monday for Wednesday or rival and he takes care of all of it and he does a really great job with it. Yeah. So it's, yeah. So like yesterday he shipped, where did he ship yesterday?

Um, oh, uh, got shipped one to San Francisco and then one to Minneapolis. Okay. Uh, so yeah, we've got it. And that was a whole, I mean, yeah, a whole another learning curve was like learning how to, you know, boxes insulation, dry ice, UPS. and you'll, you know, you have three kids. You'll appreciate, you know, I mean, one, as a first generation rancher, like, the only way this works is keeping our cost down.

So people often think we're much bigger than we are. Like it's like I do almost everything. And then Ethan helps out. And then we work with Amsterdam. So early on, we shipped, I shipped, we didn't have any employees. I shipped everything out of our house. and I'd go get the meat and dry ice from Safeway in the boxes and get everything ready. And I remember this one time, and we charge, like on a quarter, we charge by the amount of meat you get back.

Okay. And so I was like packaging the meat and I turned, grab something and then I turn around and my daughter is sitting in the box. I'm like, I joked the way. I wasn't concerned about shipping Greta to like, you know, Chicago. but my concern was like the next morning having coffee and being like, what's that under the couch? And there's like four ribbyes that she stashed. And so we were like,

we need office space. But anyway, so we just, we've learned. And now we've got it, you know, dialed with great boxes, insulation made out of recycled paper,

dry ice. And then the only thing is like in the heart of winter, if we've got a blizzard coming, we'll just, we won't ship. We just, we won't run the risk of having. having something spoiled.

Yeah. So how, like, how confident are you now that you've got it, like, do you know what I mean? Do you still worry that the whole thing is going to collapse? Or do you feel like you got it, you got to like figure it out where you're comfortable? Or is,

or is, is anxiety high? That's a great question. It's, I'd say a lot of both. Like, when we started it, I mean, I vividly remember that first year, I would literally be like, I'd get an email.

I'd be like, hey, Sarah, we got an email. Like literally. Or I get a voicemail. I'd be like, man, that's pretty cool. Somebody called me. Now, just keeping up with the emails and voicemails is almost impossible. So we're in a different place, but I still, like, we are not dancing in the end zone. Like, you're still, you've got.

a, you know, both from a, like, I guess to answer your question, it's like, there's two parts, right? There's the customer business sales side. And I'll never relax on that. Like, you know, you just, I mean, you know, businesses fail. Like, you, you lose your customer. So I'm just, like, we preach it all the time. Like, we just, we really strive for excellence. Like, from the moment someone places an order to when that meat shows up on their doorstep. Like we just, we really provide like an amazing customer experience all the way through. And then we try to provide them with the best red meat they'll ever taste. So I feel good about it.

Like we've got amazing momentum, great customers, more people finding us. But I never take that for granted. And then on the ranching side, we've, I've made plenty of mistakes, learned a lot from it. and it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's way more dialed but um you're still dealing with bison so there's you know there's still some low grade anxiety particularly this time of year just like they get grass crazy where they're like green grass green grass where do i find green grass um and but i'd say from where i was eight years ago it's you know more like a two out of ten we're like you know, early on, it was, it was, I was nervous.

Yeah. That anxiety takes a long, it, it takes a long time to dissipate, even when the risk goes away. Yeah. Like, I remember when I was trying to, what I was like, set my mind to being a writer, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Intense, crippling intense anxiety about how to make it work.

Oh, yeah. And then it works. Yeah. But you still sleep at one eye open. Oh, man. No, I mean, I know. I'll, I, like for years, you sleep at one eye open. You're so like, oh, yeah.

No, it grips you, man. 100%. I mean, early on. Like, am I going to fail? Oh, big time. And that was, yeah, that was like, that summer of 2018, what really did it. Because, again, people thought we were totally nuts. But it was like, we could see it.

And I'd put so much work into it. And it was just one of those things where I was like, if we don't like we might we might horrifically crash and burn yeah but we got to we got to try it because if we don't I'll regret it forever and I and what really did it for me is I was like I'd like I'd rather go for it and fail than never have tried yeah and that's what got us over the hump to jump off the cliff but yeah man that that anxiety I've I've had it so bad where like it was a few It was four years ago. And when it was that, when those bulls took off, one of the other, when they came back, one of them, he, he got a taste for the North Bridgers.

And he just started going. And there was, there was a time where he, he took off for eight days. Nobody saw him. I didn't get a single phone call. Not even the neighbors. I know. And I laughed. Like at one point, I was like, you can only have an acute stress response for so long.

So like, like by day five, I was like, I don't know how this is going to end. Like somebody's going to call me from white sulfur or like Manhattan, Montana. But like at this point, I have no idea. And then eight days later, he came back. But I, but like when that was going on, I remember saying to Sarah, I'm like, I think I'm, I think, I think I'm losing control of this whole thing. I think this whole thing's about to blow up. Because I was, I was just convinced that like, he's going. He's going to teach.

others to start going. Yeah, yeah. The neighbor, we're going to lose the neighbors. Rightfully so, they're going to be like, what that, you know, this is, you can't do this. Yeah. Um, so yeah, that anxiety. And I think you just, you know, it's like a muscle.

You, you, you train it and get used to it. And it's just kind of the volume turns down. And, and then each time you go through an event like that and come out the other side of it, you're like, okay. Like, that worked out okay. But do you, do you, do you ever, um, when that's happened to you, do you call your neighbors? Um, yes um uh it depends if it's like if it's quick and i think he's going to come back i don't

but on that one that one i let the neighbors know um and our neighbors are just they're just great like they they just the thing that one of the many things i love about ranchers they have like some of the best senses of humor like i just think you have to because you're dealing with animals and weather and all this shit that's outside of your control. And if you don't find humor in it, you'll just go, you'll go nuts.

And I remember this, this one neighbor, my one neighbor, Rick, who's a great rancher, great guy. This, like mud season out there,

as you know, it's just, it's real. And it, like the mud, the mud is the hardest part of the job. Like, it's demoralizing,

it just beat you up. You get stuck. And this one day I was just, and like, I was struggling with the mud. I was just pissed off. and Rick drove by rolls his window down

dead pan looks to me and's like find any mud into my it turned my whole day around I laugh my ass off and so and so no our neighbors and so that one bull

it was a neighbor that texted me and said your bull's back oh really? Yeah and I was like I'm like I'm on it and so so do you have any

like if that happens do you just do you have to just go shoot him or can you get them back in? So early on, um, so the, those ones fortunately came back. And then that guy,

that guy, he became like a legend. Like at Amsterdam, they, they, I would, you know, they knew my,

I told him my sob story many times. And they're, they're the best. Like, so normally, you know, I have, I have dates and times on the calendar.

So like yesterday. It's like, all right, Monday, April 20th. Matt's bringing us to, two bison at two o'clock. Yep.

And they're very, they're, they're, they're fairly rigid about that. I mean, they work with us, like they give us a lot of flexibility, but you can't just call them on a Tuesday morning and be like,

yeah, I'm bringing one in. They have their schedule. And with that one, they said, Matt, whenever you can kill him, you kill him and you just bring him here.

7 o'clock at night, doesn't matter. We'll take care of you. We'll get it figured out. And, and I remember we were all, the whole herd was on, one side of the dirt road and one night we're eating dinner and I look out the window and there's

this one one buffalo walking on the other side of the road and I was like son of a bitch I was like auto get in the truck and we drove over and we just watched him and he just he literally like walked to the ranch and took off for three more days and then and then last year memorial day that bull took off and he was in when I got there he was in with a neighbor's cows and the neighbor was not happy

and nor would I have been if I was in his shoes and that that talk about anxiety I was that my there was two two neighboring ranchers looking at me on a Sunday morning and they were like what are you going to do? And my like my stress

I was I could barely think and I was like I'm going to kill it. I'll be back. And I sprinted at home, grab my rifle, sprinted back, hopped in my neighbor's side by side. And we drove out. And fortunately, he walked right towards us, dropped them. And then everything shifted.

Like next thing you know, they're taking pictures, smiling, laughing. And I felt like, you know, problem taking care of. And I feel like that bought, you know, again, just more kind of street cred in the community of like, one of Matt's Bulls got out, but he was here in six minutes, and that thing was on the ground. On the flip side, have you ever looked out your window and saw that there's a domestic cow? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And same thing. I'll text them. And then our neighbors are like, so apologize. Oh, yeah, we'll come get it. Yeah. So, and yeah. And yeah. So it's, it's, you know, it took a while to get there, but we're in a good, good spot, you know, with the neighbors.

Yeah. Good, man. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you coming on a time. talk about it all. Oh man, this is awesome. So, but if dudes want to order some from you, like there's a line. Yeah. It's not, yeah, we, so I field harvest year round. Like, I mean, right now, you know, every Monday or every other Monday. So I always, you know, I just get,

I'm sensitive to like, if someone placed an order today and, you know, I wasn't field harvesting regularly and they didn't get their meat for three months, they'd be like, dude, what's the deal? Got it. But whenever- Does your site tell people when to expect it? No, but when they place an order, I get the deposit. I see the email come through,

and I email them the next day, and I say, based on our wait list on my field harvest schedule, I expect to field harvest your bison this week. And that way, they're like, oh, okay, good. I've heard from Matt. He's going to field harvest it in three weeks.

So the wait list is never, you know, like if someone placed order today, I would definitely be able to field harvest in the next month. Okay. So by wait list mean it's not like you're shipping 24 hours later or something like that. Yeah, no, it's it's they place an order and then they wait a few weeks for me to kill it. And then a couple of weeks for it to be dry aged and cut and wrapped. And then they get it.

So yeah, you just basically, so we try to super simple. We ultimately consider ourselves an e-commerce company. You come to our website, Northbridgeabison.com and our options are there. Place your deposit. I email you. And what, and I guess lastly, what's been. super cool again because we try to really provide that customer experience is I have multiple customers who I would consider good friends at this point never met them in person but like

they email me articles I email them stuff they send me cooking photos so it's been it's been fun getting to know our customers yeah yeah if you want to see if you guys want to see Matt's place go what I can't remember what the name of that video oh Phil what did you find out about hangar steaks yeah I was gonna hop in here really quick it helps uh if Facilates the contraction of the diaphragm during breathing and other throat stuff. Okay. Good to know. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. He'd be fine. He'd be fine without it. He'd just be breathing. He'd have a laborer breathing. Yeah. Hit me with it again?

Facilitates the breathe. It's a part of the, it's depending on the animal, but it, that, that's called the legs of the diaphragm or the crura, I guess, is the Latin, the Latin term. But it's, it has to do with, like, the spiked. final cord and the diaphragm and some esophagus function. Hmm. Huh. They're going straight from Phil. All right. Why did I even want, why did I bring that up?

I have no idea. We just knew that we had to cover off on it. Yeah, yeah, because we didn't, neither one of us knew with the hanging tender actually did. And then there anything, Phil, can you find out the name? Do you mind looking up the name of that video we filmed at Mats when we cut the, when we cut the bison up with the stone tools, the Clovis tools? Yeah, it's called butchering a bisoning with Clovis points and tools. Yeah. And that was filmed. That's kind of when we mainly,

we knew each other, but that's kind of when we mainly connected. Connected and met. Yeah. So if you go watch, go to YouTube and watch that video, type in like meat eater, bison clove's points or something.

Yeah. Find it. And that's kind of a little bit of a glimpse at your place. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And that was a cool day. That was such an awesome day.

When I was eating my, some parts that, some of the steaks and stuff we had on that. And then we had a lot of ground too, but I remember a couple times I hit little stone flakes. Oh, did you? Yeah. Oh, cool.

just a little bit, little stone flake. That's awesome. That's awesome. Part of the experience. I love it. Oh, that's great. That's great.

All right, man, thanks for coming on. Oh, Steve. And good luck. And good luck. Keep doing your business, man. It's been cool. It's been fun to know you and eat some of your stuff and go out there and see it all. No, I appreciate it.

I, you know, I so appreciate what you all do here at Meat Eater and I love partnering with you guys. So it's been a lot of fun for me too. I like that. Like you got like that good American elbow grease, man. It's in there doing it, you know? Absolutely. Figuring stuff out. So I appreciate it.

Thank you. Thanks a lot. Coming up. Cool. On Blood Trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road that was a sleeping bag. And there was a full of blood.

Oh, my God. He doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors. Where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there. but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper.

From cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwards. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers.

Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, IHeart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.