basis winter diet reindeer are various fodder lichens, united by a common name - reindeer moss.

main and very useful property This food is that it almost does not change its nutritional value according to the seasons of the year and is equally well absorbed by deer both in winter and in the snowless period of the year.

By chemical composition Reindeer reindeer moss is a carbohydrate feed and can be compared to potatoes in terms of nutritional value. It is believed that 100 kg of raw moss reindeer moss contains 25-29 kg of feed units. The disadvantage of this feed is the extremely low content of digestible protein and minerals absorbed by the body.

When grazing on moss pastures (pine and larch dry forests, mountain tundra), deer feel a great need for minerals. Therefore, in winter and especially towards spring, deer greedily eat human urine in the snow, lick fish barrels, gnaw on rawhide harness, bones and horns, which often causes a disease of the oral cavity.

As a result of mineral deficiency in spring, deer suffer from metabolic disorders, emaciation, weakening of the skeleton, and in case of careless fishing on a lasso in spring, bone fractures often occur.

To replenish the diet with minerals in winter and spring, it is recommended to feed deer with rock salt enriched with phosphorus and calcium salts. best view winter mineral top dressing are mineral licks produced by the Artemovsky salt mine administration.

Such licks are produced in the form of briquettes (1.5-2.0 kg) and contain 75% common salt and 25% phosphorus-calcium components. In addition, the composition of licks includes trace elements: iron, copper, cobalt, manganese, iodine and others (in proven beneficial compounds and preventive doses).

If there are no such licks, the deer should be given coarsely ground rock or common table salt mixed with stove ash. Top dressing with salt should be started from the middle of winter (from January 15-25 - February 1), when low-lying pastures, rich in snowy greenery, become inaccessible due to deep and dense snow.

Feeding continues throughout the winter and the calving period of the females, until green vegetation appears and the deer stop coming to the feeders. At least 5 g of salt is required per day for one deer during the entire period. Thus, for a herd of 2,000 reindeer of the main livestock, salt or briquettes are consumed 10 kg per day, or about a ton for the entire period.

Salt is given to deer in feeders with a long, dense boardwalk and sides that prevent spillage. Such feeders are convenient because they are not overturned by deer, and when the herd is moving, it is easy to transport them to a new pasture. For a herd of 2000 deer, you need to have 3-4 feeders, which are evenly spaced along the daily path of the herd.

If there are not enough feeders, a crowd arises around them, strong deer do not allow young animals and weak deer to approach them, that is, just those animals that especially need mineral supplements.

When deer are transferred to a fresh area, feeders with salt are carried ahead of the herd, breaking the road through the virgin lands, and the deer are especially willing to follow. Upon arrival at the site, the feeders are transported around the pasture in such a way that they are evenly distributed throughout the site.

If you put in the feeder a large number of salt and immediately for several days, then part of it is lost - deer scatter salt on the ground. Therefore, it is recommended to pour a 1-2-day supply into the feeders and replenish it as it is fed.

In order to accustom deer to mineral feeding, no special tricks . As soon as it becomes clear from the behavior of the deer that they need mineral salts, feeders are installed at the grazing site. During the first 2-3 days, most deer begin to regularly come up and lick the salt bales.

Feeding with salt strengthens the body of deer and promotes good development fetus in pregnant women. Deer that regularly receive mineral supplements have an improved appetite, they dig and eat food more energetically, which is very important for maintaining normal fatness of calves by the calving period.

In herds where salt supplementation is regularly carried out, the barrenness of calves is sharply reduced, the number of perestels and births of dead calves is reduced, the loss of calves in the first days of life is reduced, new horns in young animals grow faster, and the coat shines and gives the impression of being greased, diseases are reduced. Therefore, mineral supplementation is now an obligatory method for improving the winter feeding of deer.

In winter and spring, deer willingly eat protein supplements and react very positively to it.. On the Kola Peninsula, herds of transport reindeer did not lose their fatness and efficiency for a long time with a daily supply of 250 g of fishmeal per reindeer. A special experience of selective feeding of weak calves in the pre-calving period gave a positive result: with minimal labor and protein feed, the calves normally spread and raised calves.

Protein feeding becomes especially important under adverse conditions of winter and spring grazing in some years. As a result of the high height and density of the snow cover, ice formations on the soil and snow surface, large areas of spring pastures become inaccessible to reindeer. In such areas, the fatness of animals sharply decreases and the weakest deer begin to withdraw from exhaustion.

Under these conditions, even an insignificant addition of protein substances to pasture forage has a great positive effect, dramatically improving the general condition of the body and preventing loss of live weight. As a protein supplement, you can use fish and meat and bone meal, fish waste, compound feed, etc.

The cheapest way is to feed reindeer with fish waste (heads and entrails) mixed with a small amount of compound feed for cattle. Eating such a mixture of 3-4 kg per day during critical periods of spring starvation, animals more energetically search for and dig pasture food, even short-term feeding helps to avoid the deer's departure in the spring.

They very quickly get used to feeding with fishmeal, fish waste and other protein feeds and, as soon as the feed is brought to the herd, they quickly go to the feeders.

Concentrated feed can be transported to herds by planes and helicopters. Such supplementary feeding in the herds of the Malozemelskaya tundra showed that even significant costs for air transport are fully compensated by the preservation of tens and hundreds of deer, which are supported in a timely manner during the critical period of inaccessibility of pasture fodder.

The works of recent years have revealed the biological and economic efficiency of introducing urea and other feed protein substitutes into the deer diet. Enrichment of the usual winter-spring mineral dressing with carbamide at the rate of 10-15 g per deer per day helps to maintain fatness, accelerate the molting process, better growth horns.

Calves from females fed with carbamide are better developed, have a greater live weight and increased vitality compared to calves whose mothers did not receive urea.

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Recommended perennial crops sown outside the enclosure are mowed annually just before flowering, and then one or two more times. After the first mowing, it is advisable to feed not purely legume and alfalfa herbage nitrogen fertilizers(60-80 kg/ha), which will increase their yield and the amount of crude protein. The last cutting can be carried out after the first frosts, keeping the forage moist in small piles under sheds in feeding grounds or in sunny glades, where it thaws in the thaw or early spring.

The sooner the hay is dried, the higher its quality. The most common method of field drying of herbs in loose form is the most irrational and leads to the greatest loss of nutrients. The stalks of legumes need to be flattened, which speeds up the drying of the mowed mass by 1.5-2 times, and the loss of nutrients is reduced by 15-20%. When re-drying after rain, a sharp decline hay quality: the amount and digestibility of protein, sugar and starch are reduced by 4-5, fat - by 2 times. Noteworthy is the technology of harvesting loose hay with a moisture content of 25-30% with treatment with anhydrous ammonia (10-15 kg / t), which prevents stacks from self-heating, increases the protein content and helps to preserve the crop from rodents.

A more advanced technology is the pressing of hay with a moisture content of 20-25% from windrows into bales, rolls or rolls wrapped with polyethylene film, which allows you to save nutritional value, significantly improves the digestibility of crude protein and reduces the cost of feed by about 20-30%. This technology is widely used in agriculture Western European countries and in our advanced farms.

It is better to store loose, baled or rolled hay in sheds and under sheds, in the worst case, in stacks with a bed of slug. It should be noted that with open access to feed, wild boars can destroy tons of oat or oat-vetch-pea straw, alfalfa, goat's rue or rapeseed hay in a few days and leave deer without food. Therefore, when deer and wild boar are kept together, high-quality hay should be stored only in closed sheds or outside the enclosure.

Hay should not be placed in typical roofed nursery feeders, usually recommended for deer in all hunting publications. They are small-sized, very time-consuming to maintain, the hay in them quickly weathers, turns white, loses the last moisture, and ungulates, roe deer in particular, do not eat such food. In any case, it is more expedient to lay out hay from storages on snow. In the thaw, it will become more humid and, accordingly, more attractive and useful for ungulates.

Ropes, twine, twine and wire should not be in the hay, otherwise they tangle the legs of the animals, cutting into the skin to the bone, or hang on the horns, which leads to the death of the animal caught on the tree. There should also be no polyethylene, which ungulates often eat, getting intestinal volvulus. Another, more expensive way is high-temperature drying of crushed herbaceous crops or woody pulp from waste from cutting sites for the production of grass and wood flour, chaff, granules, briquettes and feed mixtures in AVM-type units, which ensures maximum preservation, digestibility and assimilation of nutrients and vitamins, significantly increases the productivity of animals, simplifies the process of distribution of feed and ensures high economic efficiency. Herbal flour from goat's rue and rapeseed "00" exceeds grain crops by almost 1.5 times in protein content, and 2.5-3 times in the amount of mineral substances. Alfalfa granules with special mineral additives and biologically active substances are the main food of deer and wild boar on many North American and European ranches. The industrial production of this feed in Russia promises considerable benefits for farmers and businessmen.

Given the choice, all wild ungulates prefer more moist protein (from legumes) feed - haylage (45-60% water) and non-acidic silage (65-85% water). In terms of nutritional value, these feeds are close to the green mass of grasses. The best silage is obtained from a mixture of crops: sunflower with peas, vetch or corn, oats with peas or corn, corn with soybeans or peas. Haylage and grain haylage are often prepared from oats or barley with the addition of vetch, peas and sunflower. The main preservative factor that ensures the preservation of plant mass during hermetic storage is carbon dioxide (CO2). The technology of haylage and ensiling is relatively simple and well-established in agriculture. Shredded (3-4 cm) green mass in silo and haylage trenches and mounds, treated with chemical or biological preservatives, is carefully compacted and immediately covered on all sides with a polymer film to isolate it from air and precipitation.

It is preferable to place haylage and silo storages inside the aviary. In this case, the animals will feed directly from trenches or mounds, in which the food does not freeze even in very coldy due to the heat generated. It is important at the same time to prevent the animals from opening the feed from above and from the sides, which usually leads to its freezing, contamination with excrement and spoilage. Succulent feed imported from outside (haylage, silage, root and tuber crops), laid out in small piles on feeding grounds in winter, usually freezes heavily and becomes inedible. It is preferable to lay out such food in small portions only in the thaw or in spring in places well warmed by the sun. Juicy food largely contributes to the gradual transition of ungulates from winter food to green spring food. Therefore, in a severely frosty period, the diet of animals should be hay, in a slightly frosty period - mixed, in the spring period - mainly haylage and silage.

Concentrated feed (grain, grain mixtures, grain waste, waste from flour-grinding, baking, starch, sugar, brewing industries, etc.) are rich in protein and are readily eaten by ungulates. Grain and any grain mixtures, however, cannot fully satisfy the needs of animals for the necessary nutrients. They need a variety of feeds and micro-additives in various combinations and ratios in the composition of compound feeds. The biological usefulness of the latter is usually achieved through the introduction of premixes (1-5% by weight of compound feed), which include synthetic preparations of vitamins, amino acids and enzymes, mineral salts, antibiotics, antioxidants, natural minerals, immunomodulators and other biologically active substances that contribute to prevention of diseases associated with a lack of vitamins and microelements, normalizing metabolism and energy, increasing feed digestibility and animal productivity. Along with compound feeds, the feed industry produces protein-vitamin concentrate (PVK), which is added to grain mixtures from 25 to 50%, and protein-vitamin-mineral supplements (BVMD), which are usually added to compound feed up to 25-35% by weight. They cannot be used in their pure form (for more details on feeds and biologically active feed additives for animals, see: Mukhina et al., 2008).

Domestic compound feeds and premixes are specially designed for all types of poultry and game birds, pigs of all ages, cattle, horses, sheep and goats, herbivorous and carnivorous fur animals, laboratory and pets, dogs and domestic reindeer. Wild ungulates have been left out of technological progress, and there is also a vast field of activity for technologists and businessmen.

Ungulates need to feed grain (but not store!) in crushed or flattened form - this way it is much better digested by the body. They eat mixed feed, bran, flour, cake and meal willingly and in large quantities, which often leads to blockage of the esophagus, cessation of chewing gum and belching, swelling of the scar and death of animals. Therefore, it is better to give these feeds in small portions mixed with silage, haylage and chopped root crops or after soaking them for 3-4 hours in cold water which prevents the food from swelling in the stomach. Complete feed mixtures prepared during haylage, ensiling or immediately before feeding are the most useful and promising in farming.

Concentrated feed is laid out for animals in feeders and on feed tables raised above the ground to the height of their chest, or on snow to increase humidity. It should be taken into account, however, that wild boars can eat part of the reindeer food: they stand on their hind legs, rest against the edge of the feeder with their front legs, reach for food or drop it to the ground with their snouts.

All feed should be not only high-calorie, but also of high quality. Their quality is usually determined by smell and color. Hay should be green and fragrant. Good-quality silage smells like pickled apples. A musty and putrid smell, the presence of mold, gray, brownish or brown color of hay, haylage, silage and grain feed are obvious signs of their unsuitability.

Feeding of ungulates in hunting parks should be regular and plentiful throughout the autumn-winter and early spring period, and with their high density - almost all year round. For one roe deer, about 1.5 kg of succulent, 0.2 kg of concentrated feed and about 1 kg of high quality hay per day are required. The diet of sika and red deer in maral and reindeer farms usually consists of 1.5-2 kg of high-quality hay, 2-6 kg of silage and 0.3-1 kg of concentrated feed with free water provided all year round, and its structure is not the same in seasons years (Table 4). With a shortage of natural food and on severely frosty days, the calculation rate is almost doubled. One maral in winter period approximately 10-13 q of coarse, 12-15 q of juicy and about 2-2.5 q of concentrated feed are required, sika deer and fallow deer, respectively, about 6, 8 and 1.5-2 q, roe deer - a little less, since they are more picky in food and leave a significant part of the feed laid out in the feeders. It is less labor-intensive to lay out a double portion every other day, but in severe frosts you have to feed the animals daily. Animals usually go to the feeders twice a day - in the morning and in the evening, but hungry - at any time of the day.

In trophy farms, during the period of horn growth, males significantly increase the share of concentrated feed: crushed oats, wheat and barley, as well as corn and mixed feed with biologically active feed additives, bran, cake and meal - up to 0.5-0.7 kg per day for one roe deer and up to 1.2-2 kg per individual for different types deer and fallow deer. It will not be superfluous at this time to add bone, meat and bone and fish meal, feed precipitate, monocalcium phosphate, diammonium phosphate, crushed chalk and feed mineral complex additives (DKMK) to the feed. It would be very nice if our feed industry mastered the production of special concentrates for "trophy" animals. Females need an increased rate of concentrates in the last two months of pregnancy.

With high-quality, plentiful and balanced nutrition, rapid growth of young animals, high fertility of females and the cultivation of good offspring are guaranteed, and males will have powerful antlers, which has been proven by many years of antler reindeer breeding. Boar feeding. This ungulate needs specific protein food (in nature - earthworms, insects, animal carrion, cereals and legumes, fruits), which ensures the maximum accumulation of fat reserves. In hunting and farming farms, grain waste or grain of oats, barley, wheat and rye, as well as corn, peas, sunflowers, lupins, potatoes, beets, carrots, Jerusalem artichoke, apples, pears, acorns, beech nuts, compound feed, cake are usually laid out for wild boar. , various wastes of food enterprises, meat and bone meal. With such an assortment, it will be very useful for the farmer to have close friendship with the heads of grain elevators and various food enterprises. Often such food is brought into enclosures and left in heaps in the open air, which leads to its spoilage. Wild pigs, despite their omnivorous nature, do not eat all the feed offered to them, but, as practice shows, only benign, highly nutritious and mostly moist. In most cases, animals that have a well-developed instinct for self-preservation do not approach spoiled food until they have the opportunity to find another. In hunger, they eat such food, but the consequences can be sad for both animals and farmers. Cases of poisoning and death of wild boars, especially underyearlings, with poor-quality food are recorded everywhere.

It should also be noted that wild pigs they are very careful about any new food and, even when they are hungry, do not immediately eat it. Sometimes they ignore Jerusalem artichoke or grain feed for weeks if it contains a large proportion of vetch seeds. They do not immediately eat silage, especially corn silage. Carrots, cabbage and turnips are eaten by them poorly, in a crushed form - more willingly.

Whole grains must be crushed before being placed in the feeders. As our experiments show, its digestibility by a wild boar in this case increases by almost a third, and the farmer, accordingly, does not “throw out” a third of the feed into manure! Wild boar's favorite food is corn and peas. Potatoes are also considered the best food, although this is not entirely true. They are rich in carbohydrates, but contain little protein, so this food can only be regarded as "supportive". In all respects, Jerusalem artichoke is much more valuable.

Wheat, barley, soybeans, oats, vetch-pea-oat mixture, grain and leguminous mixtures of crops, mowed at the stage of milky-wax ripeness, dried and stored in piles and piles - is also good and, most importantly, relatively cheap food. The transportation of unthreshed stacks, stacked on drags (cut branched trees) to the winter shelters of animals in enclosures, can become one of the main methods of feeding. Wild boars also willingly eat stacks of alfalfa and green rapeseed, mowed after a frost and stored in heaps on feeding grounds.

A wonderful product for animals (but so far expensive for a farmer) is granular compound feed intended for fattening domestic pigs to fatty conditions. It is preferable to put grain feed and compound feed in strong, long and stable wooden or metal troughs or on platforms made of boards built on the ground, which prevents food from trampling into the mud and reduces the risk of helminth infection, and in winter it is better to pour the feed in small portions on the snow to increase humidity . Part of the food remains in the snow, however, as it melts, all the food will be eaten. To avoid competition for food and fights leading to injury, it is desirable to spread the food as wide as possible. Separate feeding grounds are arranged for underyearlings, fenced from the penetration of adults, which will ensure their food supply, significantly reduce injuries and make it possible to carry out deworming. In the case of a joint keeping of a wild boar and a red deer, the feeding grounds for the former will also have to be fenced off, since the deer dominate, quickly eat the food and at the same time shit in the troughs.

The estimated period of feeding wild pigs in hunting farms is 70-165 days, depending on climatic conditions, daily rate calculations - 1-3 kg per head, depending on the type of food and the severity of winters. The annual feeding rate in Zavidovo is 100-110 kg of potatoes and about 7 kg of peas per individual, which is not enough in snowy winters. In January - March, the calculation rate is increased to 2-3.5 kg per animal. in Belovezhskaya Pushcha and Berezinsky Reserve for one animal per day spread from 0.5 (November) to 2-4 kg (until March). On frosty days, the daily ration is increased to 3-4 kg per individual. In fact, in natural conditions during the snowy period, each wild boar requires at least 300-500 kg of high-quality top dressing. In open-air cages with a large number of livestock and a shortage of natural feed, each wild boar needs at least 1 ton of feed per year, which is very noticeable for a farmer's wallet. Otherwise, the animals will die.

The Bishnoi community in the Indian state of Rajasthan has been worshiping nature and animals for hundreds of years. They believe that deer are sacred animals, so Bishnoi women nurse orphaned deer in the same way as their own babies.

Locals told reporters that they do not distinguish between babies and fawns and that this helps them communicate with the animal world.

This woman in the photo is breastfeeding her baby and a small deer at the same time. For outsiders, such a sight will be a shock, but for the Bishnoi tribe, this is commonplace.

This fawn is like my own baby,” says 45-year-old Mangi Devi. “Caring for fawns is my life. I feed them milk and take good care of them as members of my family until they grow up. When we are there, they are no longer orphans, as we give them the same maternal care.

There are about two thousand houses in the Bishnoi village. They revere Guru Sri Jambeshwar Bhagwan, who lived in the 15th century, and carefully follow his 29 instructions. According to these rules, the Bishnoi tribe protects and preserves the nature around them, these people do not cut trees and do not eat meat. Also they are not afraid of animals and their children play near wild animals of different kinds without fear.

Among the instructions of the guru there is also a ban on wearing blue clothes, since blue dye is made from bushes, a recommendation to wash daily and pray twice a day, bans on theft, smoking tobacco, hashish and other hemp derivatives, a ban on alcohol, recommendations not to condemn anyone and not to criticize, to be able to forgive with the heart and be merciful.

Bishnoi are also sworn enemies of local poachers, as they do everything, even risk their lives, to protect the animals.

21-year-old student Roshini tells how he himself spent his entire childhood playing with deer. He calls them his sisters and brothers and says that it is their duty to take care of the fawns and make sure they grow up healthy.

Ram Jeevan, 24, says their community doesn't see much of a difference between humans and animals and sees them more as part of a big family.

We take care of them and keep them in our homes so that more dangerous animals like wild dogs don't attack them. If they are injured, we treat them and protect them as our children.

Ram Jeevan says that their community has been like this for over 550 years and they strive to protect animals from attack and even from the summer heat, especially they take care of the little ones. All Bishnoi are very proud of the way they live.

Reindeer food in natural conditions exclusively seasonal. In summer, the deer willingly eats - eats and eats trefoil (watch), reed shoots, iris rhizomes, reed, meadowsweet, heather, rosemary, Ivan-tea and cotton grass. In autumn and early winter, grass and reed shoots become very tough and deer begin to feed on willow and aspen shoots, branches of oak, pine, and mountain ash.
He does not deny himself a forest delicacy and eats a lot of shoots of raspberries, blackberries, in autumn deer eat fallen acorns, beech nuts, wild apples and mushrooms. If they come across, the deer does not disdain and branches of birch, maple, linden, ash, eats horsetail and wild sorrel, cloudberry leaves and berries.

In winter, almost the only food for reindeer is moss, called moss reindeer moss. In order to exist normally, the reindeer has to get at least ten kilograms of reindeer moss under the frozen, hard snow cover. This type of moss is considered the main food of reindeer in the harsh winter season. Moss reindeer moss in winter does not allow the deer to get sick, as it contains a huge amount of anti-inflammatory minerals.

In spring, the reindeer moves back to the branches and green shoots of trees. Birch buds, young willow bark and green shoots of poplar, aspen, oak and bird cherry make up the main diet of the reindeer. But in the spring, deer also do not forget to eat reindeer moss - Icelandic moss.

The reindeer spends a lot of time searching for shale emissions from the ground. Necessary to maintain the mineral balance in the body of the deer, salt is the main delicacy for the reindeer. Many kilometers of marches, the reindeer have to overcome in search of salt.

Reindeer are kept in captivity in large herds of several hundred head. In this case, the main food for the reindeer is moss moss, which grows in the tundra. Dozens and hundreds of kilometers pass such herds on pastures. If reindeer are kept in small paddocks, the main diet is cereals. Wheat, oats, barley, straw, black bread and bran. This menu, of course, is different from the natural one. But, in last years, meadow grass becomes a great delicacy for captive reindeer. Because it is very expensive to buy, and many owners of small farms and zoos try to buy food of lower quality, but also at a lower cost.

The reindeer population in recent years, due to commercial slaughter, in wild nature, decreased sharply. deforestation, forest fires, large precipitation, create very difficult conditions for subsistence. The reindeer, as one of the most beautiful and noble creatures of nature, is always admired for its appearance.
Our company offers all interested parties to buy reindeer moss moss for food, especially in the winter season. Moss reindeer moss is sold in summer and autumn by prior order from a warehouse in Moscow and the Moscow region. Moss for reindeer food is delivered to consumers outside the Moscow region with the help of transport companies.

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Article: what do reindeer eat (eat)? Expert advice "Forest House" - author's, and can not be copied without the written consent of the site owner.

Reindeer diet.

Deer food depends on the season. In the summer they feed on grass, cereals and ... mice - yes, yes! Not that they are specially hunted for them, but if some frivolous mouse gapes on a tussock, the deer will grunt it along with the grass and will not even notice. And also tasty food for them - mushrooms. The peoples of the North do not eat mushrooms precisely because deer do.

So the Sami thinks: Why am I, a man, going to eat reindeer food? I'm not a deer! And there are so many mushrooms that sometimes the whole tundra around seems to be covered with a solid carpet of bright boletus caps. So deer will not be left without food in the summer.

But in winter, when there is neither grass nor mushrooms in the tundra, deer get reindeer moss from under the snow. This is the only food available in the winter cold. Deer have an excellent sense of smell, and they smell reindeer moss even under a meter layer of snow, and they know how to get it from this great depth. And what can you do: winter in these parts lasts nine months, so we had to adapt. They dig the snow with their front legs so deep that sometimes only one back is visible in a feeding deer.

Yagel is a lichen.

In the past, the Sami used to keep their reindeer near their dwellings in winter - a very small herd of three to five heads. And they prepared reindeer moss for them for the winter. In the summer it is quite simple, since you do not need to dig up plants from under the snow - you gathered an armful, put it in a shed, and let it dry for yourself. Before giving it to deer, reindeer moss was soaked in a bucket of water, and it became like fresh. And since deer love salt, salted fish heads were also thrown there. It turned out such a venison salad - reindeer moss with salted fish. Yummy!

Berry picking in the north.

And deer are very fond of berries that grow in the tundra in swamps: cloudberries, blueberries, lingonberries, cranberries. We humans are also not averse to eating such berries, so I will tell you how they are harvested.

To collect cranberries and lingonberries, there are special devices similar to a scoop with a scallop. With these combs, the berry is, as it were, combed out from the bumps: r-r-time - and I have already collected a whole glass of cranberries! But cloudberries have to be picked by hand, each berry separately - it is very tender. But deer do not need all these complexities and adaptations. After all, unlike humans, they are not afraid to get stuck in a swamp and calmly walk through it, nibbling berries.

Information from the book about reindeer.

reindeer grazing

Reindeer grazing.

Reindeer walk in the summer on their own, and no one looks after them at all. This is called free grazing. They roam in small groups of 3-5 individuals along the seashore, where the wind drives away annoying insects from them. and nibbling young grass.

Such deer independence is very convenient for a person: you don’t need to look after them or feed them. And in autumn instinct makes them go to more warm places, deep into the Kola Peninsula. So they rush to the south with trampled thrones, along their thousand-year-old routes. This is where the shepherds lie in wait for them. They know all these paths well and gradually gather deer into herds, which are driven to winter pastures. Such herds may not be very large, or they may simply be gigantic. And then their distillation to pasture is an impressive sight.

Imagine: ten thousand deer are walking, powerful snowmobiles accompany them from all sides, and helicopters fly from above. As if a whole army is on the offensive - with equipment and aircraft!

For the winter, deer can be placed in a large paddock, or you can do without it. Then the reindeer herders constantly go around the herd and make sure that the deer do not disperse. This way of grazing is called guarding. This, of course, is because deer are guarded. And the Sami herd their most reindeer much easier. Here is a hut in the pasture in which shepherds live. Deer calmly graze nearby, extracting reindeer moss from under the snow. And the shepherds only go around the herd from time to time: they look to see if anyone has strayed.

Deer horns

Discarded deer antlers are food for the inhabitants of the tundra.

All deer in the world have large beautiful antlers only in males, and only in reindeer do females wear them.

But here's the question: if thousands of deer shed their antlers every year, why should the whole tundra be littered with them? But this, of course, is not the case. In winter, the discarded horns are eaten in the tundra by all living creatures: mice, arctic foxes. Yes, the deer themselves are not averse to nibbling their antlers, sometimes right on each other's heads! Well, what can I get lost, since they are so useful! And in the summer, tourists come to the tundra, who are also happy to pick up discarded horns. They will bring it home, hang it on the wall - it is immediately clear that the person has been in the tundra.