FORT QU’APPELLE, Sask. – Norm and Bonny Mitchell are in one of the world’s oldest livestock businesses – raising reindeer.
But there is nothing old about their approach. In fact, their business is based on some of the newest research and technology available. Many of these techniques were so new they had to develop them themselves.
Artificial insemination in reindeer has been a hit-and-miss proposition for breeders and scientists.
But the Mitchells’s work in the area has been so groundbreaking that Norm spent much of September in China explaining his success to government researchers with that country’s national wildlife institute.
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While deer may be most commonly thought of as wild, reindeer are an exception. The 1.2 million animals that make up the world’s population are farmed.
“All across the northern hemisphere these animals are livestock. In Europe, the venison is a big business. They just haven’t caught on yet in Canada,” said Mitchell.
The couple relies on sales of ground, encapsulated antler for the health food market, plus antler-based animal feed ingredients and breeding stock.
They have only 12 animals, so to supply their buyers they and their business partners buy antler from as far away as Alaska.
For the past three years they have sold antler products into the lower 48 United States. The May closure of the American border to ruminant products stopped their exports to that market.
Norm is retired from the RCMP and farms at Belle Plain, Sask. He said he prefers “the deer business, even with this border problem.”
Bonny said the U.S. was “a very good market for us, but you can’t just count on one market to make a business.”
And, she said, many reindeer producers in North America can’t imagine reindeer as meat.
“They recoiled in New York when I suggested reindeer as meat. To them it is a novelty Christmas animal. You can’t be that narrow in your focus. This is a business after all,” she said.
The couple takes part in the seasonal aspects of the business, training some of their deer for parades, shopping mall and Christmas tree dealer displays and other events where they can charge $200 per hour.
“Meat is worth $10 US a pound. Not that we have any, but that’s a good market if you have animals you want to sell that way,” said Bonny.
Before the border closure, breeding stock sold for as much $6,000 for a calf.
“It is hard to say what it is today, but it is lower. But for us we need all of our production so it wouldn’t be relevant,” Norm said.
The couple is now focussing on China and southeast Asia where their Natures Peace antler velvet products may find new opportunities along with their AI techniques.
The Mitchells began a collaboration with a local dairy farmer and neighbour who was an experienced AI technician.
“He knew what worked in dairy cattle and we just had to modify the process for the deer,” said Norm.
The two developed a new probe for collecting semen from the Mitchells’ bucks.
Norm found success artificially timing the estrus of the females with an intra-vaginal, timed release of hormones using a seeder and injections of further hormones to stimulate ovulation.
Reindeer’s docile nature makes handling easier and safer than some other deer species.
Murray Woodbury of the University of Saskatchewan’s Western College of Veterinary Medicine is one of a number of public researchers that have assisted the Mitchells.
“Norm decided he was going to learn the technical aspects of assisted reproduction and combined it with what he knew about reindeer. And it worked,” said Woodbury.
“Norm has created an alliance with the Chinese and they are tremendously impressed with the Canadian industry.”
Mitchell’s work was so interesting to the Chinese they invited him at their expense to travel to China to demonstrate his AI techniques and to bring semen from his bucks.
“The federal vets were astonished when I applied to export our semen to China and I had a real Chinese import permit. It was the first time it had been done and it was farmer who got it on his own,” said Mitchell.
He credits having a certifiable clean bill of health and regular testing by Canadian authorities for disease as being the reasons why the Chinese government approved of his work there.
He is now working with the vet college and the province to host a delegation of Chinese researchers and exotic livestock specialists who will be touring Saskatchewan next summer to examine the western Canadian industry.
Woodbury said that will be good for Canadian exports.
“Even beyond deer – they want to look at all Canadian production. Deer, bison, elk. The works. And one guy who was interested in doing something different made this happen.”