Real live Rangifer tarandus do n’t depend much like creative person ’ depictions ofRudolph and Santa ’s caribou , which attend more like vulgar white - tailed deer . Real caribou have thicker , libertine bodies , scant legs , heavy coat , and really big antlers with more point and wider tines .
Some reindeer are domesticate and others are n’t . There are large population of wild reindeer in Norway , Finland , Siberia and Greenland . scientist think Rangifer tarandus were tame 5,000 to 7,000 years ago somewhere along the Russian - Mongolian border , where they were likely used as decoys to pull wild deer so that Orion could kill them . Domesticated reindeer also provided meat , milk , tallow , sinew for sewing , and hides for fashioning blankets , clothing and footgear . Ancient reindeer herders used trained caribou to hinge on and perpetrate sled . Reindeer tameness finally distribute throughout Russia and Scandinavia , but reindeer did n’t arrive in America until the 1890s .
The first domesticated caribou in North America came to western Alaska from Siberia . During the mid-1800s , Russian whaling ship decimated ocean mammals along the Bering Sea coast , so native people were starve because they had no food to eat . In 1892 , Captain Healy of the U.S. Revenue cutter Bear and Dr. Sheldon Jackson , a Presbyterian minister of religion and the U.S. Commissioner of Education in Alaska , worked together to import 171 reindeer and five Siberian reindeer drover to tend them and teach Alaskan indigene how to raise reindeer . By the thirties there were about 640,000 reindeer in Alaska . Reindeer were particularly prized during the Alaskan gold Benjamin Rush , when their heart and soul brought gamy cost and reindeer were used to perpetrate miners ’ sled . Reindeer even assist deliver the ring armor ; the first postal reindeer route was established in 1899 .
Reindeer are cool animals . I count if we did n’t live where it ’s so hot our Mom would buy some ! Reindeer weigh between 180 and 600 pounds . Both sex have antlers but male ’ antlers are much bigger and more telling that those of female reindeer . In fact , reindeer have the big antlers comparative to body size of all living cervid . Reindeer bucks shed their antler in December or Januaryafter rut , but does shed them after yield birth , through early spring .
You could conjure up reindeer if you want to ! Some mass conjure them for their healthy kernel . According to the University of Alaska , reindeer nub is high in protein ( 22 per centum ) and broken in blubber ( 3.5 percent ) compared to leanbeef(19.2 pct protein and 9.5 per centum fat ) . A distinctive young Greenland caribou yields 120 pound of tasty meat .
However , most American breeder bring up and string reindeer to take part in Christmas case like parades and “ Meet Santa ” pic ops . Christmas - tree farm sometimes keep Rangifer tarandus as care - getters , too .
The beauty of reindeer is that handled from birth , does and castrated Male are very docile . They ’re easy to contain in normal small farm situations and do n’t require expensive manipulation installation . They ’re easy to train to lead and to perpetrate sleds .
TheReindeer Owners and Breeders Association websiteis a good place to watch about domesticated reindeer and to locate responsible for breeders who sell tidy animals . Another in effect resource is “ Reindeer Roundup , ” a 198 - page bulletin published by the Reindeer Research Program , University of Alaska Fairbanks . Check it out — you may download it for gratis !
Ask Martok!Do you have a livestock or wildlife question you desire me to answer?Send me your question!Please keep in mind that I receive a lot of interrogation , so I wo n’t always be capable to answer each one immediately . In the case of an animal pinch , it ’s important to reach out to your veterinarian or university extension federal agent first .
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