Terry Bison Ranch

After reading Sue's post yesterday about the buffalo who have taken up residence near her house, I realized I'd never posted any pictures from the Terry Bison Ranch at the south side of Cheyenne, Wyoming. It's a great place. It's been in existence since the 1890s, when it extended west almost to Laramie (about 40 miles), east almost to Nebraska (about 100 miles), north and south about 100 miles each. Today the western boundary is I-25 North/South, east about 30 miles, north about 5 miles, and south about 10 miles from where the pictures were taken. The up close and personal buffalo here are what they call the "Show Herd" of animals that are more docile than most. Truly, you should avoid buffalo; they are very irritable animals, and extraordinarily powerful. The ranch herds them with Suburbans instead of horses to minimize danger to the people and horses. The buffalo have been know to charge the 4WD vehicles and knock them over - one on one. They can only be kept penned by use of high tensile strength barbed wire; they will walk through any other kind of fence.

Since they were shedding their winter coats, they really looked quite disreputable.

Most of the show herd gathered around the train that took us into their field, looking for the pellets our driver threw out the door. This one was particularly friendly.

I'm hungry; feed me!
This one liked her head rubbed. My daughters were enchanted.
Here's how you tell the adult boys from the girls, apart from the obvious. The girls' horns curl back over their heads, like these two lovely ladies.
The guys' horns go straight up. There are fewer dudes in the Show Herd, because they're fiercer.
This is one of three trains that roll through the buffalo pastures for their tour. The owner of the bison ranch built the trains and their track himself. He purposely looped his track about 3oo feet into Colorado, so he could boast that he owns the largest privately held interstate train line in this country. That made me laugh.
They had other assorted animals near the train depot, but the funniest was this goat. I love his hairdo.
And this is the mansion on the Terry Bison Ranch. Originally built by Senator F. E. Warren of Wyoming, very close to the Colorado state line (like 1/10th of a mile), President Teddy Roosevelt was a guest. So they can truly brag that "Teddy Roosevelt slept here!"
Of course, they had a restaurant with great food; we had buffalo burgers, bison chili and Beast sandwiches (pulled buffalo). No pictures of food; we were too busy celebrating Shannon's graduation.

And thus ends my little tour of Wyoming. I hope you all enjoyed it. And now you know what gender your buffalo are, should you ever encounter them!