Published on October 24, 2007

Dan Maclure has converted a dairy farm to a beefalo farm in Barton. Photo by Bethany M. Dunbar

BARTON — For Dan Maclure, getting into the beefalo business seems a little like getting back to his own future.

Mr. Maclure was a dairy farmer before he went into real estate.  He sold his Irasburg dairy farm in 1984.  So when a chance came along to get into the cattle business part time again, he was happy for a couple of reasons.

For one thing, he likes working with animals.  For another thing, he’s helping to keep one farm from getting developed.  It has been pretty discouraging for him as a real estate broker to sell off farms that were not going to stay in farming.

“None of this was planned,” Mr. Maclure said.  “It just kind of fell into place.”

Mr. Maclure was interested in beefalo after finding out about them from a real estate client, Ed York, who bought Garvin Hill Farms in Greensboro.

“He was the one that hooked me,” Mr. Maclure said.

Beefalo are hardy and healthy, calve with little need for help, do well on all sorts of feeds and pastures and in all kinds of conditions.  The meat is lower in cholesterol than chicken, with about the same amount of calories and fat as chicken — considerably less than regular beef.

To be registered as a beefalo, an animal must be at least three-eighths bison, with the rest being any beef breed.

“To register them we send in hair samples for DNA,” Mr. Maclure said.  It only takes about four days for registration papers to come back.

These tan colored beefalo show the long, curly hair that is a trait of the breed. Photo by Bethany M. Dunbar

Three years ago, the dairy farm formerly operated by the Smith family on Maple Hill Road between Barton and Orleans came up for sale.  It is a particularly beautiful farm with gorgeous views, rolling hills, and lots of great pasture.  Mr. Maclure bought the place and decided to get into beefalo.

The barn was set up for dairying, and Mr. Maclure had to decide whether to tear it down and start over or convert it.  In the long run, converting it seemed the best way to go, and that’s what he has done.  He took out the gutter cleaners and stalls to make one big area with a flat floor, raised the roof on the main part of the building, and added a chute system and scales so cattle can be weighed, vaccinated, and so on with as little stress as possible.

Meanwhile Mr. York’s health had led him to get out of the beefalo business, and Mr. Maclure was able to buy his herd and some other smaller ones.  So at this point, Mr. Maclure has 210 animals on the place, which he calls Farm and Forest Ranch.

About 15 of these animals are Angus owned by his herdsman, Bob Butterfield.  Mr. Butterfield started working for Mr. Maclure six months ago and brought with him many years of experience with beef cattle — including experience showing cattle.

In the foreground is Josh Smith with Devon, and behind him is Bob Butterfield with Danny Boy. Devon got third place, and Danny Boy got a grand champion reserve trophy at the Fryeburg Fair in Maine on October 3. Photo courtesy of Farm and Forest Ranch

“Even though I grew up farming, I’d never shown a cow,” Mr. Maclure said.  But showing is a great way to get the word out about beefalo, so they decided to get a couple of the animals ready to show at the Orleans County Fair in Barton and the Fryeburg Fair in Maine.

Results for this first effort were impressive as one of their animals, Devon, got third at Fryeburg, and one, Danny Boy, got a grand champion reserve trophy.  A young neighbor, Josh Smith, helped with the showing.  The Fryeburg show was on October 3.

In September, Mr. Maclure hosted the North Eastern Beefalo Association field day, including 4-H demonstrations and a cookout with beefalo burgers for people to taste.  He said it went well, and about 30 producers came, along with consumers who were just curious.  The meat is tender and rich and has a slightly wild flavor but not at all gamey.  It’s important to cook it slowly because there is so little fat.  The burgers barely shrink at all while they are cooking.

Mr. Butterfield said some potential beef customers miss the marbling in the meat, which comes from fat.  So they are considering experimenting with raising two types of beefalo — one as is, and one with a bit more marbling.

The animals look much like other beef cattle.  The most noticeable differences include hair that is curly and longer than regular cattle, and front shoulders that are wider and heavier — sometimes with a bit of a hump.  Mr. Maclure’s bull, Kyle, is quite large and the hump is pronounced.  Colors vary depending on the color of the beef part of the beefalo.  Mr. Maclure said sometimes they are almost pure white, some are tan, red, brown, black, or combinations.

Mr. Butterfield said he is impressed with how easily the animals calve.

Beefalo colors can vary from tan to red or black. Registered beefalo are three-eighths bison. Photo by Bethany M. Dunbar

“You turn around, and the calf’s out,” he said, which is not always the case with beef cattle.  He said there are only rare issues with a bit of foot rot or pinkeye — problems that often plague regular beef breeds much more frequently.

Mr. Maclure has a number of beefalo for sale right now.  He has enough feed for 150 for the winter, so he is aiming to sell a few of the animals that don’t have a high enough percentage of bison to register as beefalo.  The herd is not organic because he has used some fertilizer and fed some corn that is not organic to help with handling and making the animals a little more tame.

That means the price is lower.  At this point, Mr. Maclure does not have a federal license to sell packaged meat, so he is selling cattle for the customer to get slaughtered and butchered themselves for $2 a pound hanging weight, or $1 live weight.  He also has some one-year-old bulls for sale for $1,200 and a bred cow and calf for $1,200.

In working toward his goal of making the whole herd registered, Mr. Maclure decided to get some bulls from a different part of the country.  So he got together with a beefalo breeder in Danville and another one in southern Vermont to buy

Kyle is a prize beefalo bull at the Farm and Forest Ranch. His huge shoulders and slight hump are signs of his bison breeding. Photo by Bethany M. Dunbar

bulls from Michigan.

Mr. Butterfield, who has always been an Angus man, says he thinks beefalo will be more and more popular as people try it.  The Angus farmers have done a wonderful job of promotion, he said.

“Black hide sells,” he said, but “these animals will compare through and through.”