So if bison are on pasture or on the range during fall or winter then some adjustment in stocking rate is needed to achieve higher utilization. At this point it should be said that if bison are allowed to graze an area where available forage is less than 300lb per acre there will soon be a point where intake will not meet physiological needs and all classes of bison will lose weight. Below 300lbs of available forage per acre there is so much energy expended in getting enough forage for intake that the energy expended is more than energy from intake. This is due to bison being good at moving around and distributing their use in large areas, using rough country, and being able to use areas far from water. When considering stocking rates care should be taken as to where bison will be during the rut.
Bison tend to heavily use open, flat areas at that time.
If the pasture or range they are on has the majority in forested or rough areas some drop in stocking rate may be warranted. If the stocking rate is not dropped those open flat areas which make up a small portion of the area may become heavily utilized which may result in that area becoming degraded. When bison heavily use an area and continue to use that area animal performance will drop because of reduced forage availability and that could reduce reproductive effort. A recommendation for cow calf herds to increase range use and reduce feed costs is to extend the grazing season through fall and into winter. This is due to the fact that bison are able to cope with cold and snow well and use low quality forages as described in earlier articles.