DARIEN, Ga. -- A Georgia rancher has spent the last three years raising bison on his 50 acre pasture in coastal Georgia.
Troy Bivens spent 20 years in the building homes business. But he says when the construction industry tanked in 2006, he needed to find another way to make a living.
"The market was gone, so I thought about what I was going to do."
So he says he fell back on an old dream.
"I've always wanted to be a farmer, but my work always got in the way of that."
He spoke with a family member who owned some buffalo and that got him his start.
He's been raising the animals now for three years, and has more than a dozen restaurants and markets around southeast Georgia that purchase meat from him.
"It's a very healthy, delicious meat," he says, "You just have to know how to cook it right."
Bivens says the hardest part of the job isn't handling the buffalo, it's educating folks about the animal.
"Some restaurant owners don't want to try it in their kitchens because they aren't familiar with it, so we try to show them how good it really is."
To learn more about Biven's company, or to order some bison meat of your own, visit his website.
First Coast News