An eight-time CrossFit champion has started a bison farm in middle Tennessee. Rich Froning says that having the unique livestock started as a hobby, but has quickly grown into so much more!
Rich Froning has a real connection to this land in Putnam County, Tennessee. Growing up here he never imagined he would one day raise bison.
According to Froning, “Basically, it started out as a thing that we could do chores with our kids and have some fun with our kids and give them some hard work and some life lessons to learn and more of like a hobby.”
It is not unusual for one of his children to accompany him on a pass through the pasture to check on the livestock.
“They’re a little more hands off than cattle... They’re not domesticated completely,” he states.
Now you may notice his son is snacking on what looks like beef jerky, but it is actually a bison stick: “It’s really clean, not a ton of ingredients and my kids enjoy it. It’s pretty hard to find stuff that is healthy and kids like.”
Froning now has a full line of bison snacks. Eating healthy and lean is very important to him. You see, Rich is a professional athlete-- and eight-time CrossFit champion.
He was dubbed the “Fittest Man in History” after winning four back-to-back individual CrossFit Games Championships, 2011-2014. At 35 he is still competing. He has even transformed his barn into a gym.
So, while he is working out like a beast, he knows right outside the beasts, that he calls “America’s first farmers,” are creating an arena for teaching his kids valuable life lessons-- like facing a storm head on.
“When Bison, out west, when they see a storm they face into the storm and try to move through the storm quicker. A lot of other animals, or people, would run away from the storm and it would eventually catch you and stay in it longer.”
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