“Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam.”
That’s part of the Kansas state song, and it’s still true that bison – the American buffalo – can be found here in Kansas. Today we’ll meet a rural Kansas family that is raising buffalo and providing high quality buffalo meat to the public.
Jo and Shawn Rolph are the founders and owners of Dry Creek Buffalo Ranch near the north central Kansas town of Delphos. Shawn is from Delphos and Jo is from Wamego. They met in college at Concordia.
“My husband had a heating and air business in Wamego,” Rolph said. “He did a heating project for the Plumlees, who raise buffalo, and he fell in love with them.”
She added, with a smile: “He came home and said, ‘I want to raise buffalo.’ I said, `What?!”
“My dad was a Kansas fish and game biologist and he loved buffalo,” Shawn Rolph said. “I’ve always been drawn to them.”
After seeing how the Plumlee family raised buffalo, he figured his family could also raise buffalo on the Rolph family ground near Delphos. In 2009, they moved back to Delphos and bought several head of buffalo from Plumlees. Over time, they began marketing the high quality buffalo meat.
Using the name of the waterway that runs through their property, the Rolphs named it Dry Creek Buffalo Ranch. They bought a food truck to market their buffalo burgers and other foods.
“Buffalo meat is tender, very lean, and nutrient dense,” Jo Rolph said. “You can get 20 to 25 grams of protein from a quarter-pound bison burger.”
“People who haven’t eaten buffalo before tell us that the steaks are unreal,” Shawn said. “They can cut ‘em with a plastic fork.”
Raising buffalo has been a learning experience. “We started out fencing with t-posts,” Rolph said. “Now we use electrified, high tensile wire.”
“Buffalo have a strong herd instinct. They tend to stay in family units, so the mothers, daughters, and calves tend to stay together,” he said.
The animals do need access to mineral licks. Most of the time, they are docile.
“Ours are fed grass only,” Rolph said. “We don’t need to supplement them in the winter.”
For best quality, he said buffalo are harvested at age two or three years.
The Rolphs feel they have excellent support from other buffalo breeders. “The National Bison Association and Kansas Buffalo Association have been great,” Rolph said. “People like the Plumlees or Ed Dillinger are really willing to help.”
Rolph shared the example of when he had a question about one of his animals that was sick. “I called the National Bison Association about a sick buffalo,” Rolph said. “Within ten minutes, the head vet from Wyoming was on the phone with me.”
The Rolphs take their food truck to various events around the region. “When we started, our kids were in high school,” Rolph said.
Now the kids are grown and gone. Their oldest daughter is in Manhattan, the younger daughter is in Kansas City, and their son is in Olsburg. David Kiser helps on the ranch and high school students provide help in summer and on weekends.
“We want to get out as much as possible,” Rolph said. “We’ll take the food truck to festivals, fairs, auctions and other events. We want to sell our meat to everybody.”
One service that the Rolphs provide is taking their food trucks to small communities that don’t have a café or restaurant. “We love the small towns,” Rolph said.
That is fitting, given their location. Dry Creek Buffalo Ranch is near the rural community of Delphos, population 302 people. Now, that’s rural.
For more information, search for Dry Creek Buffalo Ranch on Facebook.
As the Kansas state song says, buffalo still roam in Kansas. We commend Jo and Shawn Rolph and all those involved with Dry Creek Buffalo Ranch for making a difference by using these remarkable animals and providing high quality meat.
It’s good to be in rural Kansas where the buffalo roam.
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