Girlz Gone Wild Bred Heifer Show & Sale

Where Performance Meets Maternal Potential

Created in 2011, the DTBA Girlz Gone Wild Bred Heifer Performance Contest brought DTBA’s performance-testing philosophy to one of the most important pieces of any bison operation—the female.

Following the innovative model established by the Young Guns Performance Bull Contest, Girlz Gone Wild brought heifers from multiple ranches together at a host operation where they could be managed under common conditions. The goal was to look beyond appearance and give producers an opportunity to evaluate growth, performance, conformation and reproductive success while showcasing some of the industry’s most promising young females.

The first Girlz Gone Wild heifers entered the program at Cammack Buffalo Ranch in 2012, beginning what would become a long-running DTBA performance program. Over the years, additional host ranches stepped forward to continue and grow the contest, providing the management, pasture, breeding opportunities and extensive data collection necessary to evaluate the females fairly.

The heifers were evaluated through an extended performance period that included time on grass and breeding exposure. Performance information helped producers see how females from different breeding programs developed under similar conditions, while pregnancy testing added one of the most important measures of a young breeding female—her ability to successfully breed and enter a productive cow herd.

At the conclusion of the program, qualifying bred heifers were brought together for DTBA's annual Winter Conference Show & Sale, where performance information was paired with live evaluation and the females were offered to buyers as breeding prospects.

Throughout its history, Girlz Gone Wild has attracted females from bison operations across the country and provided consignors with an opportunity to test their genetics, learn from performance data and showcase their breeding programs. For buyers, it offered something equally valuable: the opportunity to purchase females backed by considerably more information than could be seen from the sale ring alone.

After several years away, DTBA brought Girlz Gone Wild back for its 30th Anniversary celebration, with the 2025–2026 class bringing together 33 heifers from 11 producers. The revived contest evaluated the heifers equally on end weight, average daily gain on grass and live conformation, before the bred females were showcased and sold during DTBA's 2026 Winter Conference.

Girlz Gone Wild represents an important chapter in DTBA's history of performance-tested breeding stock—a program built around the understanding that the future of a bison herd depends not only on great bulls, but on productive, efficient and proven females.

Measuring performance. Proving maternal potential. Building better females—and better bison—for the future of the bison industry.