Does anybody have reindeer or know of anyone who has them? I've got an opportunity to purchase a pair of calves, unrelated, male and female. What ever information you have would be greatly appreciated.

-- claudia in NY (cooleyville@aol.com), November 24, 2001

Answers

If thats the kind of animal (species) you want (me to some day), them go for it. I have a web site for the registry (www.cybercervus.com/roba/roba.htm). You can e-mail them for a breeders list. This way you will know who to contact (that is close to you) when you need any help or more breeding stock.

Good luck

animalfarms

-- animalfarms (jawjlewis@netzero.net), November 24, 2001.

They use them for everything along the Northern Edges of Europe and Asia.

Try the Reindeer Owners and Breeders Association website at http://www.cybercervus.com/roba/roba.htm Also: http://www.discovery.com/stories/nature/reindeer/reindeer.html http://reindeer.salrm.alaska.edu/ http://www.itv.se/boreale/bovts.htm

-- Skip in Western WA (sundaycreek@gnrac.net), November 24, 2001.

I was looking into them a while back and was told that as far south as I am (! Zone 3) that I would have to air condition their barn in summer or lose them to heat stroke. Best to investigate that angle thoroughly.

-- julie f. (rumplefrogskin@excite.com), November 24, 2001.

Get this months issue of Mother Earth News as the feature article is on reindeer or try their website it may be on there.

-- Carol Koller (ck7951@bluefrognet.net), November 24, 2001.

What would you use them for?

-- Chandler in Minnesota (Providencefarms2001@yahoo.com), November 24, 2001.

Aren't reindeer the same as caribou?

-- Ed (smikula@bellsouth.net), November 24, 2001.

They're closely related, Ed, but reindeer are from Scandinavia, and caribou are from North America.

-- Joy F [in So. Wisconsin] (CatFlunky@excite.com), November 24, 2001.

I'm posting a link to the Rangifer project, a multinational multidisciplinary project designed to enhance man's knowledge of reindeer/caribou. Rangifer is the name of the genus. is There more in here than anyone ever might want to know.

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~arctic/rangifer/

-- Audie (paxtours@alaska.net), November 24, 2001.

Hi Claudia, we have friends here in Northern Iowa (zone 4) that have raised reindeer for years. I don't really know alot about them but I do know the reindeer are outside all summer with no airconditioning. They do have trees for them to get under but that's it.

-- Anna in Iowa (countryanna54@hotmail.com), November 24, 2001.

As I understand it, it can get mighty hot in summer where they live - it's by no means cold ALL year, although it's VERY cold some of the year.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), November 25, 2001.

My horseshoer used to trim the hooves of reindeer in the area. He learned real quick not to do it when they were in rut! -LOL-

-- ~Rogo (rogo2020@yahoo.com), November 25, 2001.

Strike one for female equality. Since Christmas is during the male rutting season, all of the reindeer you will see at malls, Christmas tree farms, etc. are female. Prancer, Dancer, Donner, Blistin, etc. pulling Santa's sled are, no doubt female. However, it does make one wonder about the gender identify of Rudolph and LeRoy.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), November 25, 2001.

Ken, if all the female reindeer are in malls, etc, what are the males rutting with??

-- Ardie (ardie54965@hotmail.com), November 25, 2001.

Another reason you can tell that they are all female is that by Christmas the males have dropped their antlers. The females keep theirs until after they calf in the Spring.

-- Ken in Maine (kenjan@nh.adelphia.net), November 25, 2001.

Reindeer and caribou are not just closely related, they are one and the same animal. Same species. Called reindeer in northern Europe and Asia and Caribou in North America. Same animal.

-- Skip in Western WA (sundaycreek@gnrac.net), November 25, 2001.

This might fall into the " which came first.. the chicken or the egg"? I have been doing a good bit of research and most of the sites I've found say that reindeer and caribou are in the same family but not the same animal. Although similar, there are fundamental differences between reindeer and their wild cousins the caribou. Reindeer are shorter and stouter. Reindeer bulls are smaller than caribou bulls, but cows weigh the same. The nose bridge, or face, of the reindeer are flatter than caribou. Reindeer tend to stay in more cohesive groups while caribou are often scattered. This information comes from the " reindeer research program" in Alaska.

-- Ken in Maine (kenjan@nh.adelphia.net), November 25, 2001.

Hmmm. Well, I did find sites that give them the same Latin name, Rangifer tarandus. They also say that there are differences between the inhabitants of Eurasia and those of North America. In fact, in North America itself there are two different types, the woodland caribou (bogs and coniferous forests from Newfoundland to British Columbia, with palmate antlers up to 4 ft) and the barren- ground caribou (of the tundra of Alaska and N Canada, which has many- branched, slender antlers and which may undertake mass migrations in search of food). The Eurasian reindeer are considered to all have at least some domesticated animals in them, and the domestication of the reindeer has produced several "types" of deer, as well as color variations.

Did you know that dogs, yes even a lap poodle, are genetically the same as wolves? Greatly modified by thousands of years of human intervention, but still the same genetics. Yet, would you say that shaggy timber wolf and a chihuahua are the "same" animal? So I guess it depends on how you view "the same".

-- Joy F [in So. Wisconsin] (CatFlunky@excite.com), November 25, 2001.

Well said Joy F!

-- Ken in Maine (kenjan@nh.adelphia.net), November 25, 2001.

Remember when they tried to reintroduce caribou here in Maine, Ken? I do believe it was a flop...but can't remember why! Something about the correct food (lichen), I think.

-- Marcia (HrMr@webtv.net), November 25, 2001.

I do remember that. Didn't they spend somewhere around a million dollars and some of them ended up being coyote food and others just couldn't adjust to life in the wild. I also seem to remember that a couple of them went into Canada.

-- Ken in Maine (kenjan@nh.adelphia.net), November 25, 2001.

Ouch! Joy F, how can you be so right and so wrong in the same paragraph? Canis familiaris, the domestic dog, is not "genetically the same" as C. lupus, the gray wolf. Yes, they are similar, and the dog does come from the genetic stock as the wolf. But that's quite different from being genetically the same. You are correct in your observation "I guess it depends on how you view "the same"."

The only complex organisms that are genetically the same (and even then, duplicating errors will cause minuscule differences) are identical twins and clones. But, crazy as it seems, DNA-DNA hybridization tests will show there is more similarity between that chihuahua and my Alaskan malamute than between my malamute and a gray wolf. Although, in all honesty, I'd like to see those tests! But that's what geneticists say.

-- Audie (paxtours@alaska.net), November 25, 2001.

no but i would like one

-- cheryl sipary (c_sipary@yahoo.com), February 28, 2002.