Deer Raising

Over the years I have had a number of deer in breeding groups, primarily White Tails and Fallow Deer, and enjoyed them, but keeping WTs , and Elk is now very difficult here in Michigan. I have always enjoyed and admired Reindeer and Carfibou, so I am considering them, probably a trio of youngsters.

Anybody here have contact info on folks raising either?

Also, any questions that you have on either WT or Fallow I'd be glad to reply to.

My SO is also very experienced in bottle rasising a number of exotics including deer. So ask away,

its good to see this section, I hope it gets a lot of attention and traffic.

I don't have a question, but will be sure to ask if one comes up in my future. Out in the Western part of NY state, on an old Navel Nuclear site there are WHITE deer. Not just their tail, but their entire body. Kinda scarey when you consider what the land they live on used to be used for.

white deer are found all over...

I can't even explain how neat I think it would be to own a deer or an elk, but I know nothing about keeping them (or if I even can).

SillyChicken said:

white deer are found all over...

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Hmmm.... I didn't know that....and my family has hunted deer for 50 years in my memory...for generations before I was born....and no one ever meantioned seeing, much less shooting at any color deer other than brown.

White deer may not be common in your area. Just like any white mutation in the wild, it makes a prey animal easier for predators to find and therefor they tend to have a pretty low survival rate. There are several kinds of white deer, true albinos and leutistic deer, which are not albino but do lack pigment in their hair.

I believe this is the herd you were talking about. If they were on a military base, all bases are fully fenced. This means that there are acres of land that are no longer accessible to hunters or most of the whitetail deer's natural predators. With less natural pressure from predators/hunters natural mutations have a much higher chance of surviving to breeding age and passing those genes on to future generations. In the case of the deer herds in Seneca they also got a helping hand when the military allowed controlled hunts to bring the deer population under control but only allowed the normal-colored brown deer to be harvested.

http://www.senecawhitedeer.org/white-deer-natural-resources/

There are also piebald deer out there. Now those are even more rare than white deer.

http://www.buckmanager.com/2007/07/17/piebald-deer-what-are-they/

Even less common are melanistic deer.

http://www.northamericanwhitetail.com/2010/09/22/weirdwhitetails_wt_1201melanistic/
http://www.buckmanager.com/2008/01/25/abnormal-whitetail-deer-coloration/
http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/black-deer/

AinaWGSD said:

White deer may not be common in your area. Just like any white mutation in the wild, it makes a prey animal easier for predators to find and therefor they tend to have a pretty low survival rate. There are several kinds of white deer, true albinos and leutistic deer, which are not albino but do lack pigment in their hair.

I believe this is the herd you were talking about. If they were on a military base, all bases are fully fenced. This means that there are acres of land that are no longer accessible to hunters or most of the whitetail deer's natural predators. With less natural pressure from predators/hunters natural mutations have a much higher chance of surviving to breeding age and passing those genes on to future generations. In the case of the deer herds in Seneca they also got a helping hand when the military allowed controlled hunts to bring the deer population under control but only allowed the normal-colored brown deer to be harvested.

http://www.senecawhitedeer.org/white-deer-natural-resources/

There are also piebald deer out there. Now those are even more rare than white deer.

http://www.buckmanager.com/2007/07/17/piebald-deer-what-are-they/

Even less common are melanistic deer.

http://www.northamericanwhitetail.com/2010/09/22/weirdwhitetails_wt_1201melanistic/
http://www.buckmanager.com/2008/01/25/abnormal-whitetail-deer-coloration/
http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/black-deer/

Click to expand...

Yup, they are behind a fence and in Seneca. I am having a blast clicking the links you posted....THANK YOU sooo much....and white deer in a green forest would be a real deternant to survival. (kinda like the white chickens being the first the hawks target) I'm gonna see about getting a hunting licence and finding myself a white deer to mount over my mantel, just as soon as I get a mantel. LOL

But, again, thank you for the links...that was very kind of you to find them to post.

Edtied to add: I have a herd of about 10 piebald deer living right on my road. Well, not actually ON the road, but in the feilds on the sides of the road. They like to come through and eat my left over garden produce, after I take the fence down in the fall. I thought that I was seeing things when I saw spotted adult deer so I never meantioned it to anyone....until now

So is anyone here raising deer now? Just curious.

About 15 years or so ago there was a huge amount of interest in farming fallow, whitetails, red deer an elk then a few herds around the country had problems withTB and the interest seemed to come crashing down with states crackdowns, here in MI the dnr and ag dept overreacted, per usual and crushed a beginning thriving needed industry, one of the biggest fallow breeders in the country in NYS went out too.

Myself I really would like to see it become viable again.

I live in town, so clearly no deer literally in my backyard (although one of the neighbors did spot a wild one roaming the street last year). But about 10 miles east of us there are two farms that I know of that raise...caribou maybe? I've seen the deer but since I'm always driving past and paying more attention to the road I've never really gotten a close look. And there's another one, I think, about 40 miles south/south-west of us (I know they used to have deer, caribou again I think, but it's been a while since I've driven past and been able to see if they still have them, and the fences are a little ways back from the road so they aren't that easy to spot anyway). I know one of the boys I went to school with raised white tail when I was in high school, but I think that may have been an FFA project because I haven't seen any deer when we drive past their house (it's on one of the two routes we drive to go visit our parents) the past few years since he graduated. I'm trying to remember if the other household in that family along the same road has a few deer or if it's just ostrich (or neither anymore) in addition to the cattle. Plus there's Hardy's Reindeer Ranch about 15-20 miles north of us, but I'm not sure how much they count as they seem to be largely a seasonal farm attraction so I'm not sure how much of their business is tourism and how much of it is actually raising deer as livestock. I do know they have babies every year though, so I imagine at least part of their business has to be based on selling. When I was in high school, there was a caribou ranch way south of us that I saw several times on field trips to Southern IL University, but that was in that 15 years ago range you were talking about and I have no idea if they're still in business. The first time I mentioned them on the bus no one else had seen the deer and thought I was making things up.

SillyChicken said:

white deer are found all over...

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I saw several not too far from where you live (Jackson area) a few years ago off I-94

Jake, you still in Michigan? You might want to look into Deer Acres by Pinconning. They sell their extra deer and elk from time to time