Our Story

Austin and Deborah Tanner bought this farm in May of 1981 as a dairy farm. They raised dairy cattle until they sold out of that business in 2002 and again in 2006 due to historically low milk prices and difficulty finding employees. Austin has been fascinated with bison since he first learned about them in the 5th grade when his class studied Thanksgiving, including Native Americans and bison, which actually roamed across all of the continental U.S. at one time. He fell in love and decided that someday, somehow, he would have one as a pet.

The family listened for years about his dream. One year milk prices were fairly decent and Deb decided to get the wishing taken care of and get a baby bison for Christmas! Baby bison, however, are very expensive. So, Deb purchased Austin a membership to the National Bison Association. His first NBA magazine came advertising a conference. The whole family went, Austin was hooked. In November of 1990 Austin went to the National Bison Association auction in Pennsylvania with a blank check in hand. He came home on cloud nine with these words, ‘We have 5 bison coming tomorrow, guess we better get ready!’. We had our first five bison the next day: Harriot, Marion, Anastasia, Drizella, and Maleficent.