We are so excited to be sharing the story behind Copper Flats Bison Co. We had to jog our memories a little bit to get this story straight because it seems so long ago that this idea came into being! David and I, Lia, have known each other since 2010 and much has happened in the past ten years to bring us to where we are now. So, read along to learn how Copper Flats came to be!
When David was a kid, he remembers seeing bison on a farm around the corner from his, trying to catch glimpses of the large but quiet animals anytime they passed by. Intrigued by what he saw, he spent time researching bison to learn more about them. As he learned, he was impressed by their character and the history of their survival. Although the farmer around the corner retired, David’s fascination with bison continued into adulthood and turned into projects, spare time research, and every vacation bucket list.
Then on a day trip in 2015, we were at a zoo watching the bison and David began to share ALL the information he had collected about bison with me. It was a lot; I mean I knew he watched buffalo ranching YouTube videos in his spare time - but not that much! So of course, on our way home, we just “had to” drive an hour out of our way to pass by Blanbrook Bison Farm in St. Marys. You would've been shocked by the number of times we slowly drove by! haha! (sorry, Bruce). From that day on it became our goal to have a bison farm. It took us three years of talking and planning to actually buying our first bison herd and two more years before we started selling bison meat! In that time there was lots of “are we crazy?” discussions, and much time spent resourcing fencing, researching farming
practices, buying animals, etc.
We can’t forget to mention our three wonderful children that have joined us in that time too! They have inspired us to continue growing our farm and we love seeing them enjoy it. Life has been busy but we are so thankful and blessed for the opportunity to do something that we love. Sometimes moving forward seemed difficult but throughout this journey we’ve seen God working things together, times where opportunities and solutions “seemingly” fell into our lap. We pray that He will continue to guide us on this adventure and that we can use this farm for His glory by helping and supporting our community.
We’re also so thankful to Bruce and Shirley Mills from Blanbrook Bison Farms for being our mentors and Todd and Charlene Dowd from Cape Chin Bison for our first bison heifers. Many other bison farmers in Ontario have answered our questions, let us visit, and supported us in our dream and we greatly appreciate the community we have with bison farmers. We’re also very thankful to our family, friends and neighbours who have helped us by listening to our plans, building gates and fences, lending us freezer space or trailers, helping with round ups, spreading the word about our farm and adding bison meat to their plates. We wouldn’t be here without you!
Lia & David
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