why cattle over bison?

The gestation period of these two animals are about the same (270-280 days), so why did cows become the default domestic food animal in the US? Clearly, the bison was used (and abused) in this country, and they were used for clothing, food, and whatever else the pioneer could think to use the animal for.

!) Are cattle more versatile?
2) Are cattle easier to maintain, herd, drive to the slaughterhouse, etc?

I believe the average bison supplies a larger yield on meat, leather, fur for clothing, and anything else that the animal could be used for.

Cattle had the huge advantage of already being loooong domesticated. I don’t think even ranch-raised bison are considered domesticated yet (the same way that ranch-raised elk and deer are not). There ARE European bison, btw. They’re rare now, though, and somewhat smaller than American bison. The choice was basically made a very long time ago when Indo-Europeans chose the aurochs for domestication rather than the wisent.

My brother has a small bison operation. They are not really domesticated, and require far more robust fences and handling facilities than cattle. They yield less meat than beef - hardly a surprise, given that beef have been bred for rapid weight gain for centuries. All the fatty muscle on a hereford or angus is evolutionarily sub-optimal. Bison are much leaner animals. They look big in profile, but they’re pretty skinny if you see them from behind. Very narrow asses compared to a beef breed.

The overriding reason is the domestication thing, though. Cows are tractable. Bison are not.

Gorsnak and jayjay nailed it. Bison are ill-tempered, large, and very strong (you don’t realize how big they are until you’ve been eyeball-to-eyeball with one). Even after generations of ranch living, they’re half-wild animals.

I used to raise Corriente cattle, and I had a heck of a time keeping them fenced (they’re great jumpers). When I started comparing notes with some friends who have bison operations, I considered myself lucky. I’ve watched a 2-year-old bison jump a 4-strand barbed wire fence without even touching the wire. I’ve seen the damage adult bison have done to gates, corrals, and pickup trucks.

We’ve got a bison operation nearby and my wife buys their meat at the farmer’s market for nutritional reasons. I’ll take an Angus steak over bison steak any day.

I have an uncle whose brother-in-law raises bison. Some idiot left a gate open and they got out into open range. Took forever to round them up again. They don’t take kindly to horses. (Yes, there are still people who round up livestock on horseback.) It was a major, long term, time consuming effort.

They are just plain not tame. It would take hundreds of years of selective breeding to make them even a fraction as docile as cattle. But note that there is a natural inclination by most ranchers to “preserve” bison close to their genetically wild form, which discourages this.

Domestic cattle, especially dairy cows, are incredibly … well, okay, stupid. (Sorry cow fans.) I am amazed they can remember to chew their cud.

In principal I agree, the angus has a better fat to lean ratio for flavor profile. Bison being a lower fat animal makes amazing schnitzels [pound a thin cut steak even thinner, dredge and saute] because of the quick cooking. It is also good roasted gently, sliced and turned into rouladen[roll a thin slice of roast beast around grilled spring onions and poached asparagus, and line up in a heatproof dish, pour ‘gravy’ over and pop into an oven until the sauce is nice and bubbly and the rouladen are heated through] and it makes an absolutely fantastic bison bourguinon. I really shouldn’t discuss food before I have had breakfast /drool

I prefer using horses to round up cattle. The horses can follow in places that an ATV or motorcycle can’t. Mine figured out if I was on the ATV they could jump an irrigation ditch and escape, but if I was on a horse, I could jump better than they could.

That said, I’d never chase bison on horseback. I talked with one bison rancher who had a horse killed by a bison, and I’ve seen truck doors after a bison charged the side of the truck.

Don’t mean to hijack the thread, but aren’t bison more agile/nimble than cattle?

I don’t think we know it was Indo-Europeans who domesticated the Auroch. Do we?

Also, I don’t think we have any pure-bred bison in the US any more. All of them have some cattle ancestry, if even just a little.

In “Guns, Germs, and Steel,” Jared Diamond builds a whole theory of the development of civilization around the topic of which animals can be domesticated, using the American Bison as one counterexample. The list of domesticated animals is quite short.

Yes, by a substantial margin.

Depends on the breed, but generally yes (my Corrientes could hop a fence like the bison I mentioned earlier, too).

Bison look ungainly and awkward, but they can run very fast. They’re a lot more agile than beef cattle, but can’t turn on a dime like a typical roping steer.

It was really a shock the first time I saw a bison pronking (bouncing along with all four feet hitting the ground at the same time, like this springbok). I wish I’d had a video camera.

Good point. The Sumerians and Egyptians obviously had cattle, which I wasn’t thinking of when I posted that.

Do you have a cite for this?

This has been a fascinating and informative read.

Thanks all!

I’m not buying that all the animals that could be domesticated were domesticated. I don’t believe that we can prove a given species of large mammal is incapable of being domesticated, especially since the process could take hundreds of hears.

Bison and cattle are interfertile, meaning they are very close, genetically. Closer than wolves and foxes, and deliberate breeding of foxes has shown that they could be domesticated, at least in theory.

I’m not taking a position on whether or not Diamond’s theory is correct, but it is provocative.