Experience of feeding deer in Russia. "I breastfeed the deer because he is like my own baby" What can you feed deer at the zoo

Beautiful, graceful, graceful and intelligent animals live in the northern polar latitudes - reindeer. Reindeer food is not available everywhere, so they have to spend a lot of time and effort looking for it. Deer are able to walk hundreds of kilometers in summer - to the north, and in winter - to the south, in order to feed themselves and their offspring.

What main and pasture food saves animals in summer and winter from starvation in the harsh conditions of cold latitudes, we will try to find out together with you.

Features of deer nutrition

Unfamiliar with the natural conditions of the tundra, it may seem that the natural world of this region is very poor. This is not so, therefore, large animals, the basis of the diet of which is plant food, manage to provide themselves with everything they need on their own.

Their main food in summer is the leaves of willow, dwarf birch, and other plants, as well as grass and berries. It has been noticed that deer are picky about greens - they will not eat wilted branches with dry leaves, but will choose young and juicy leaves. They even eat mice. Deer do not specifically hunt for them, but if a mouse gapes, it will most likely be eaten along with a bunch of juicy grass. Deer graze in groups of three to five individuals where there is lush grass - most often on the sea coast.

In autumn, deer find cotton grass, cloudberries, fallen acorns, and sorrel. Mushrooms are considered a favorite delicacy of reindeer. Most they find right away, but in order to feast on flywheels, in early winter they have to dig up the snow.

In winter, when there is neither grass nor mushrooms, the animals feed on reindeer moss, digging snow up to a meter thick with their hooves, they find lichens and eat them up to ten kilograms a day. In addition to reindeer reindeer, they eat lichens from branches and tree trunks with pleasure, drinking sea water and eating algae. So that such a monotonous diet does not lead to beriberi in winter, because the winter period here lasts almost nine months, deer are given bone meal, table salt and other feeds that satisfy their needs for vitamins, minerals and microelements.

For animals that are on the free range, the search for salt sometimes becomes a real problem, therefore, in order to find shale emissions, deer go on many kilometers of wandering.

Yagel is an amazing plant that grows in most of the natural tundra zone. This is a soft moss of light color, it sometimes grows in height up to 40 centimeters. It grows slowly, so pastures are quickly eaten up and herds of deer roam again and again in search of food. It is thanks to its chemical composition that deer do not get sick, and endure the harsh winter cold.

Animals can gnaw their discarded horns, which is not considered something out of the ordinary. Moss moss does not satisfy the body's needs for protein and salt, so animals eat lemmings, bird eggs and even their chicks.

Feeding reindeer kept in paddocks

Representatives of the northern peoples keep deer as pets, so they worry about what animals will eat in winter. They prepare reindeer reindeer moss in the summer and store it in dry sheds. Before giving it to an animal, the reindeer moss is soaked in water, then it becomes juicy, as if it had just been plucked. Sometimes salted fish heads are added to reindeer moss, deer love such a platter.

Since the meadow grass becomes less and less every year, the animals are given wheat, straw, bran, black bread and other products that replace the meadow delicacy.

Reindeer have adapted to the natural conditions of cold latitudes and feeding on lichens, therefore they live in places where others, except for the musk ox, cannot live. Every year, beautiful and noble animals are becoming less and less, due to the deterioration of the environmental situation, their living conditions are changing, which negatively affects their health and immunity. The number of individuals is also affected by poaching and uncontrolled hunting.

The northern peoples owe their existence to deer in many respects, therefore they have learned to live with them in peace and harmony.

The most important thing in reindeer farming is feeding. I have already written repeatedly that the red deer is less demanding on the variety of food than the cow, but very demanding on quality and quantity.
The biggest mistake I have seen with other farmers is dividing into small paddocks. In a small space, animals, they say, are better controlled and driven from paddock to paddock, but here we are faced with another problem - a trampled field. On the project in Smolenskaya, my boss was of a mathematical mindset, and how could he (maybe good) gave me his perspective on things. I decided to digitize the reindeer, digitize their livelihoods, this is useful for me and was familiar to the management.
Here's what I got: In a large paddock, the grass left much more slowly than in a small one. Pure proportion - X sq. m area per 1 deer for 1 day, it was not possible to display. For 7.5 ha it was 17.4, and for 2 ha it was 25. All because the deer trampled down part of the field. After all, there is a concept - the living and total area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe apartment, for a small paddock, the percentage of area under the beds and trails was noticeably higher. And hence the lack of feed and poor condition for the breeding period. If you do not feed, then our animals will approach the autumn mating thin and emaciated, and this is a minus for reproduction, and if you feed, then we get into another problem. Deer are wild animals and will eat as long as there is food, especially such a good one as compound feed. I calculated the dose incorrectly, and females will come to mating with obesity, and this is also minutes for reproduction. Therefore, every reindeer breeder should strive to keep his livestock on natural feeding as long as possible, this is physiologically correct and economically feasible. The area of ​​feeding pens must be calculated taking into account the amount and value of the grass cover, the amount of precipitation, soil structure, geography, and many other factors. After talking with other reindeer herders, I came to the conclusion that for a normal meadow in the Middle Strip, paddocks should be 6-8 hectares. You don't need more, you don't need less. Have 4 pieces of small paddocks of 1.5-2 hectares for various zootechnical purposes.

That is why every respectful reindeer breeder must determine externally, I would even say - from afar, the condition of their animals and correct it in time so that it comes up in perfect condition by September, otherwise we will lose in calves.

I give you a sign from the site, maybe someone will come in handy. Notice how thin the line is between Good and Very Good Condition.
So, autumn came, we coped and the second stage of feeding began.
We need to deceive the deer, they, like any females, including the human race, will never become pregnant if they do not have a guarantee of a good apartment and the opportunity to feed a deer child. We need to deceive the females, to do this, make them think that everything will be fine. Avoid crowding and abundant feeding. In autumn, the grass is not the same, so we add silage / haylage and grain to the diet. Here you don’t have to worry too much that you overfeed - you won’t get particularly fat in the fall, especially with such physical exertion that the male experiences (I will not show porn videos a second time) but don't overdo it anyway. After all, a deer is a herbivore and an excessive amount of concentrated feed causes acidosis and death of the animal. The normal dose is considered to be 1-1.5 kg per adult deer and 0.5-0.75 kg per calf, depending on the quality of the feed and the ambient temperature.
We put a family of deer (20-25 females per male) on an area of ​​​​2 hectares, so small paddocks came in handy. For industrial breeding, where the accuracy of whose calf and from whom is no longer important, then we put one hundred females and 4-5 males on 8 hectares, naturally without horns.

Nutrition

A distinctive feature of the reindeer is the ability to digest the carbohydrate part of lichens by 80-90%, while other ungulates absorb no more than 40-50%. Yagels are high-calorie, rich in carbohydrates, but contain little protein, vitamins and minerals, and in terms of nutrition they are at the level of concentrated feed used for livestock. Compensation for the missing substances is carried out by eating other plants and snowy greenery, animal feed, mushrooms, gnawing horns and bones, eating marine waste.

Reindeer diet changes dramatically with the seasons. spring deer eat especially greedily cereals and sedges, later, leaves of various kinds are often used willows and dwarf birches. Summer deer eat about 300 plant species. In the vast majority this green plants: by weight, they occupy 70-80% of all food in the stomach; lichens the same - only 10 - 15%, the rest is lei and other miscellaneous stuff. autumn significantly increased in the diet lichens. In the contents of the stomachs, green plants occupy 30-50% of all food. Among other foods, they willingly eat mushrooms, even dig them out from under the snow. For the sake of mushrooms, mountain deer descend even from the loaches into the forest belt. Lichens in winter in a number of regions they are the main food and in the stomach it takes up to 70% of all food by weight, the rest is occupied by the remains of green plants preserved under the snow, mosses and other impurities. Animals detect reindeer moss under the snow by smell. In the tundra, they dig up snow up to 75-80 cm thick with their front legs and muzzle, and loose snow in the forests - up to 1.5 m.

With such a diet, deer experience protein-mineral starvation in winter, and therefore they greedily eat snow moistened with urine human and dogs, and if possible try to eat and animal feed origin (eg. small rodents) destroy bird nests eggs, drink sea water and eat washed ashore kelp. In summer, deer do not pay attention to urine, by lemmings eat willingly. In the diet of wild deer in Taimyr, lichens are of subordinate importance, and the basis of food resources is made up of wintering higher plants.

The number of reindeer is limited not by summer, but by winter pastures. Without prejudice to reindeer moss recovery, 4-5 times fewer deer can feed in winter than in the same area in summer. In summer, one deer needs 4-6 hectares, an average of 3.2 hectares per head, and in winter 12-18 hectares, per year 18-24 hectares of pasture.

During the day in summer, a deer eats 11-22 kg of green mass (2.8-5 kg ​​of dry matter), in winter - 8-14 kg of raw food. That is, in winter, food and energy consumption is about a third less than in summer, which occurs mainly due to a decrease in activity, a slowdown in metabolic rate, and the use of fat as a reserve energy source.

For deer, the lack of water in food is no less noticeable than the lack of food. If reindeer are fed with sodium salt in winter, they quickly lose weight: in an effort to quench their thirst, they eat large amounts of snow devoid of salt, as a result, they spend a lot of energy on its melting. The need for lichens in winter is determined not only by their nutritional value, but also by their high water content (up to 70-80%). Deer can do without lichens where there are a lot of wet snowy plants: horsetails and winter green grasses containing a lot of water, vitamins, proteins and microelements. In summer, the proportion of lichens is minimal, as they dry up and are almost devoid of moisture.

reproduction

Deer reach puberty in the fall in the second year of life and continue to breed until about the age of 20, but already from the age of 10-12, many females begin to degrade the ovaries. The total life expectancy is about 25 years.

Herd of reindeer. Photo: Sondrekv

The rut starts from mid-September-early October to late October-mid-November. In the arctic tundra earlier than in the south of Siberia. The most noticeable sign of the approach of the rut is the formation of mixed herds. By this time, the deer are molting. The horns are ossified and cleaned of velvet. The fatness of animals is close to the maximum. In places of concentration of animals, peeled bushes and "points" with urine appear on the ground. Males acquire a strong specific odor secreted by the secretion of the anal gland. The sound signals of animals resemble a series of short snores.

Reindeer are polygamous, i.e. during the breeding season, the male covers several females (3-13), forming "harems". In groups of animals up to 10 individuals there is one bull, in larger ones there are several. Males fight each other in front of the female. In the absence of a female, fights between males do not happen. Skirmishes between bulls are ritual in nature. Males keep females, eat little and lose up to 20% of body weight, by the end of the rut they become weak and are no longer able to resist subdominant males. After the rut, the males are separated from the herd and kept separately. Calves do not leave their mothers during the rut.

The female's estrus lasts about 3 days and repeats 2-4 times in 11-22 days. The duration of pregnancy is 219-238 (from 192 to 246) days. Calving occurs in May-June, a frequent period of migration, when snow still lies in many places. One calf is born, twins are rare. The mother intensively licks the cub, which contributes to the drying of the body and reduces the possibility of frostbite or freezing.

For the first few hours after childbirth, the mother, next to whom the deer is located, continuously makes quiet hoarse sounds - “shorts” so that the cub remembers her voice and later finds the mother by it, that is, communication in the family is supported by sound signals.

The fecundity of young females is lower than that of adults. Barrenness is low: under good fodder conditions it does not exceed 2-3%, and only on low-fed pastures it reaches 30-40%. In general, the fertility level of reindeer females is lower than that of elk and roe deer, and is more consistent with that of red and sika deer.

It is characteristic that the pregnant women retain their horns for some time after calving, while the males lose their horns at the beginning of winter. A newborn calf weighs 5-6 kg. He can get up on his feet the same day and mix after his mother. The mother finds the stray calf by its voice and identifies it by smell. In the first week of life, the calf is able to swim across the river. At the age of one month, the molting of the juvenile cover begins and ends after 3-4 weeks. Lactation lasts about 6 months (until winter).

In calves, the horns are in the form of knitting needles, bent forward. Hardening and cleansing of the horns in September-October, shedding in April-May. In the 2nd year of life, the horns have a corolla and anterior process. The formation of the dental system ends by the age of three. By this age, males reach full growth, and by 5-6 years - full development.



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 desirable to feed non-pure legume and alfalfa herbage with 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%. With repeated drying after rain, a sharp decrease in the quality of hay occurs: 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 nutrition, significantly improves the digestibility of crude protein and reduces the cost of feed by about 20-30%. This technology is widely used in agriculture in 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 the high-temperature drying of crushed herbaceous crops or woody pulp from the waste of logging 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 severe frosts 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 essential 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 the 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 feed 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 part of the reindeer food can be eaten by wild boars: 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 entire 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. In winter, one deer needs about 10-13 q of coarse, 12-15 q of juicy and about 2-2.5 q of concentrated feed, sika deer and fallow deer, respectively, about 6, 8 and 1.5-2 q, roe deer - a little less, as they are more picky about food and leave a significant part of the food 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 of 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 for wild boar, 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 , 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 are very cautious about any new feed 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 shocks and piles - is also a 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 food 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, the daily calculation rate is 1-3 kg per head, depending on the type of feed 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 in the Berezinsky Reserve, from 0.5 (November) to 2-4 kg (until March) is spread per animal per day. 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 requires at least 1 ton of feed per year, which is very noticeable for a farmer's wallet. Otherwise, the animals will die.

Managing red deer (red deer) in artificial conditions

I must make a reservation right away that my personal experience in this area is not very great - we (so far) have raised only one red deer baby. But at the very beginning we faced a huge problem - we could not find information anywhere that would help us out. Actually, that's why I came up with the idea to write a short guide for those who still have to enter “how to feed a red deer cub” in search engines.

First you need determine age animal. Our Yashik came to us through second hands, so only a veterinarian could reliably determine his age - 6-7 days. So, what does a wapiti cub look like at a week of age:

Height at withers: 64 cm

He is still not very good on his feet, they are slightly curved with the letter X. He often “cries”.

Teeth: back (if I may say so) not yet, front 8 (now Yasha is already 2 months old, but the front is gone), they are all below. 2 in the center are very large and funny: o) the rest are quite small.

Weight: 10-12 kg (but this is taking into account that he was fed incorrectly for his entire first week)

By the way, it will be useful to understand who is in front of you - red deer or spotted deer. They are often confused. The red deer is larger (against our 65 at the withers - 45-50 in the spotted deer, weight approx. 4-6 kg). The head is large, the ears are elongated. I would compare them with the length of the nose from the tip to the eyes. The deer has a neat muzzle with VERY large round ears. Now as for the coloring. It should be noted that everyone has spots. In deer, they are located along the ridge and will come off after the first molt in October, while in spotted deer they are all over the body and will remain for life.

In red deer, the spot under the tail is yellow and small, dimly outlined. In a deer, on the contrary, it is white, wider and strikingly different in color from the general background.

And now the most important thing - about feeding. Or is it more correct to say breastfeeding.

Golden rule: don't overfeed. Feeding and a deer and a fawn represents a fractional supply of milk. We gave cow's milk (necessarily boiled!) With the addition of water and infant formula "Malyutka 1" (one - that is, from birth).

Proportions: 1 liter of milk, 8 measuring spoons of the mixture, 0.5 liters of water. For the first 2 weeks, you need to feed 8-10 times a day, 100 g of the resulting mixture. It is better to use a bottle with a simple (not the most expensive) elongated nipple. By the way, because of the structure of the jaws, the deer did not recognize the pacifier so respected by Aventa's mothers. Of course, it is better to warm up to 36-38 degrees.

After the second week, you need an afternoon, between feedleniya, give about 150 ml of water. Once a day we gave lightly salted (1 teanaya spoon without top per liter of boiled water). ToOrmi now 8 times a day, 250 ml.

At the age of three weeks, the red deer was drunk with a five-day course of the Vetom-2 probiotic (why I won’t tell you exactly “2”, but that’s how we were determined in the veterinary clinic). Dilute one sachet in 200 ml of water, divide in half and give twice a day one hour after feeding (so you will need 5 sachets)

Month. At this age, you can transfer from a baby bottle to a cow bottle (for feeding calves - sold in veterinary stores). No, of course, you can continue to drink from a small one, but it will be tiring - you need to fill it several times for one meal or have 4 at once. Its cost in Primorsky Krai ranges from 1900 to 2400 for a 25-kilogram bag. This amount is enough for about 2 months. The first days we add kormilak to cow's milk, but we cancel the infant formula (i.e. we get 1 liter of milk + 0.75 ml of water + 100 g of kormilak), then (well, say, on the fifth day) we give pure kormilak, i.e. . at the rate of 1:9, as written on the package. I weighed a plastic container on a culinary scale, it turned out to be 200 gr, i.e. almost 2 liters of water. At the age of one to two months, his daily intake increased from 2.5 to 4 liters of formula per day, and the frequency of feeding decreased from 6 to 4 times.

Grass . I wondered for a long time when to start feeding with grass. But everything turned out to be easier - Yashichek himself reached for the raspberries. And off we go. Most of all he liked dandelions, grapes, raspberries.
Then come beets, ash leaves, currants. He also loves berries terribly: o) Honeysuckle, strawberries, currants, raspberries, irga - everything goes with a bang. At the same time, the apples directly spits out. You can give pureed vegetables as a substitute for grass.

Feces. Normally, he is like a goat - balls. Our pet had diarrhea at first. Wrong food - diarrhea, did not boil the bottle - diarrhea, overfed - diarrhea again. What to do. Give less food and carefully monitor the sterility of dishes.

Dehydration on the second day of life at my house, the veterinarian determined us - Yashka refused to eat, barely stood on his feet. He was given a dropper in the neck (do not do it without a specialist!) with saline through a butterfly 4-ku, 200 ml + half a bottle of glucose. He almost immediately got to his feet, but it was impossible to feed, it was possible to give saline in the evening and replace one meal with it the next day. In general, having a doctor in the family, on the second day we were ready to repeat the drip on our own, but, fortunately, it was not necessary. In order to prevent, see above, drink salted water daily.

Arrangement places. Here, of course, the more the better. Yasha had to live in an open chicken pen, 3x8. The size, frankly, is not great. Net height 3.5 meters. It is necessary to make a small canopy, 1.1-1.2 m high, with a roof and without one wall - so that it can enter freely, cover the floor with hay, which needs to be changed regularly (because they defecate, most often, under themselves).

General recommendations. The life of these small, defenseless creatures is in your hands. Therefore, it is important to decide what will happen to them when they are ready to exist on their own: do you intend to give it to the zoo / zoo / safari park or plan to release it into wildlife. The permissible frequency of contact with the animal depends on this. If he is destined for the fate of a wild beast, then do not allow strangers to approach him, i.e. he should know only those 1-2 people who care about him. But you need to remember that even with this option, it is vital for him, no matter how pathetic it may sound, closeness and warmth, a sense of security - when you feed him, do not be lazy to stroke and talk - he will soon begin to recognize your voice. If you are not going to let go into the wild, then you need to hug the first 3-4 weeks as often as possible - you yourself will see how it calms him down.