Deer Farming and Daniel Thomas Whitetails

For the next couple of weeks I will be working with the theme of captive raised wildlife and next week you will see baby deer. This week I will be talking about an industry that I have already started to become involved in and the good that it does as well as my current internship. Humans have raised deer for thousands of years, the circumpolar people of Eurasia use them as pack animals. Only recently has the deer grown to its current size in the United States, There are currently farms in many states and in places around the world, such as New Zealand. Texas is the state with the most farms at a number that is higher than 1,500. People raise many different species of deer; sika, axis, fallow, elk, Père David's, moose; with the most popular species being whitetail. People raise deer for several different reasons including: meat, breeding, and stocking preserves. Raising deer for breeding and raising them to stock hunting preserves are very common, especially for whitetails, with raising deer for meat far less common due to factors that I have yet to clarify. I do know that over 70% percent of the venison consumed in the United States comes from red deer that were raised in New Zealand. I want to work to change this so that we are consuming home-grown venison. Deer farming is awesome and I want to tell you more about it.

There are organizations that help deer farmers across the country; there are national organizations such as the North American Deer Farmers Association (NADeFA), which I am a member of, and the North American Elk Breeders Association. There are also associations in many states such as Whitetails of Wisconsin and Whitetails of Louisiana, I am a member of both. I enjoy being a member of these organizations as a student because they support the future of the industry by providing student and associate memberships at affordable rates.These organizations help farmers and ranchers by providing information and a network of people to communicate with. They are always friendly and will direct you to someone who can help you. NADeFA is how I was able to get this internship this summer. These associations also hold sales and expos where people can get to together and check out what others are offering, see the latest and greatest equipment, buy some deer or semen, and take classes and listen to speakers to further their education on deer. These associations also raise money through donations, membership fees, sales, and lobbying congress that will be put toward research to treat or end cervid diseases. The cervid diseases that research money goes to and that are harmful to deer include Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) and Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease/ Blue Tongue Virus (EHD/BTV). CWD was first identified in captive mule deer at a research facilitie and later found in other deer in Colorado and has since spread to much of the U.S. CWD can affect individual deer for years but is not very common in populations and many will argue that CWD has never killed the deer but a weakened immune system allows secondary diseases to invade. Many states have had CWD for decades and some are just now getting hit by it, places such as Arkansas. Many states that are just now encountering CWD are acting very strongly to the spread. In Texas they were having mass tests of these animals and since their was no live test that meant killing the deer. Now there has been more research and Texas allows some farms to do the live tests with proper training. States have also closed their borders meaning that no deer can be transported into their state. Both of these as well as other regulations can hurt deer farmers as much as they help. By killing the deer to test farmers lose their means of making money and closed borders prevents free trade and alters market prices. Farms are usually CWD accredited and not usually the spreader of CWD. New science shows that the prions that cause the disease are picked up through plants and are then transmitted by wild animals who are not aware of state borders. Funding from these deer associations is going to find a live test of CWD so that probably healthy deer do not need to be killed. EHD also kills deer at a high rate. It is widespread in the south but less severe and less common in the north but has higher mortality. EHD is spread by midge flies. I was fortunate enough to work on the tail-end of a project that Whitetails of Louisiana funded to test EHD vaccines. While it was not a large enough study to definitively determine how well the vaccines work it shows a trend that future work may follow. There is also not a lot known about cervid immune systems and what levels of immunity in the body are necessary to prevent infection. Endeavors like these are what deer association put their money to to help these animals and the people who care for and hunt them.



Last summer when I worked at the vet clinic I met a couple who raised deer and we were able to work with their deer on several instances. It was last summer that propelled me onto the course that I now choose to follow. Last fall I started looking for a job this summer and it was between working at a veterinary pharmaceuticals company in an R&D department and working at a zoo (maybe one in Wisconsin). While perusing the NADeFA website for reading topics I noticed that they had an internship section. I clicked on it and started reading. At that point I decided I wanted to work with deer this summer. At some point I started going through the listings and picking out the ones I wanted to apply to. I applied to a lot of them; several in Texas, one in Louisiana, one in Alabama, one in New York, one in Michigan, and a couple in Wisconsin. I really wanted to work in the south as I knew it would be very different than home and in particular I wanted Louisiana. I didn't hear back from many of them but I did hear back from the Louisiana farm; they had already selected their interns for this year. I was bummed but hopeful that I could find work at another farm. A week or so went by and I was contacted by Daniel Thomas, President of Whitetails of Louisiana, of Daniel Thomas Whitetails in Springhill, Louisiana. He had gotten my resume from the other farm and asked if I was interested in being an intern this summer. After a phone interview I thought about it for a couple days. I then responded that I would love to work there this summer. That is enough of a setup so let me tell you what I have been doing this summer.


This summer I have been doing all sorts of work related to the whitetails on this farm. One of my primary responsibilities here is taking care of the bottle-fed babies. The doe are bottle-fed to tame them and some bucks may be fed for many reasons. I also administer medicine to the babies that are sick or have issues. I also keep records of the fawns and help get them through a process we call tagging. This process involves vaccines, probiotics, weighing, and ear tagging. We can talk more about my experience with fawns next week. I also help with the older deer. I help feed them their rations. They get two different feeds twice a day; they get their normal feed in the morning and a special treat in the evening that is high in fat to keep their weight on. I also help herd the deer when we are moving them to other pens or vaccinating them. To vaccinate the doe I started out by blow-darting the ones that were pregnant so that their udder would not be hurt by the chute. I did a good job and was able to finally put my practice to use. After these does gave birth and all the others who were not pregnant they were ran through the chutes to be vaccinated. For vaccinations I draw up the vaccines and hold the doe so they can get their shots. The bucks require a different approach, we herd them in their pens to areas where Mr. Thomas shoots them with a dart-rifle and gives them their shot. I have learned a lot about handling deer through these practices.


I have also worked on many other projects. The EHD tests that were done by Whitetails of Louisiana were done on the farm I am working on. When we received the results I helped analyze them and determine what they showed. I was then able to contact several veterinarians and other professionals in the fiels with the results and get their opinions and provide them with the results to keep them up to date. I have also been working on creating a feed ration for the farm. We worked with a mill to create a ration that meets the needs of the farm and will start being used this fall. I also observed the does and evaluated them for several weeks to determine how close they were to giving birth. I was decent at determining how close they were but they are all individuals and develop and behave differently. As of today we have had 31 fawns.

I love the deer farming business and have loved working on the farm this summer. I will be sad when I have to leave in a month, but I know that this experience has been a great one for me. In a couple of weeks there is an expo and sale for Whitetails of Louisiana that I am really looking forward to attending and being able to talk to other deer farmers and check out their booths. I have had a very rewarding summer and not only have I grown but I have watched the fawns grow and I have watched small racks of antlers on the bucks grow into beautiful, impressive monsters. I think raising deer is great and I hope to keep involved with it in the future. This summer has been great and I know it has helped propel me to do what I love in the future. If you have any questions feel free to contact me.

Pictures

All by Justin Hohlen

All pictures of bucks and fawns are when they have a lot more growing to do.