YORKTON, Sask. – For 2,000 years antler velvet has been used in Oriental medicine, prescribed for virtually any ailment.
It is now increasing in popularity in the western world.
Northwest of Yorkton, Warren and Margo Ziolkowski are elk producers who have diversified into the expanding market of antler capsules.
In 1993, they sold 30,000 capsules containing either pure ground antler or an antler and ginseng combination under the Elk-Vite and Elk-Pep labels, respectively. Last year’s initial production run was 200,000 capsules.
Warren Ziolkowski has studied scientific information detailing how velvet has been used for various medical conditions. He said eastern medicine follows a philosophy of preventing health problems. However, he makes no promises about product effectiveness.
Read Also
Stock dogs show off herding skills at Ag in Motion
Stock dogs draw a crowd at Ag in Motion. Border collies and other herding breeds are well known for the work they do on the farm.
“We can’t make any claims about what it does,” he said, explaining that the sale of these types of products falls under grocery, not medical, regulations.
Ziolkowski said many customers take the capsules for arthritis, while others use them to treat back problems, sugar diabetes and asthma. Conditions Oriental doctors have treated include stress, high blood pressure, epilepsy, sexual disorders and cardiovascular problems.
More energy
Ziolkowski, his wife and their seven children have all tried the supplements. Margo said some of them noticed they had more energy and continue to take them.
“We thought we’d try it first and then get the capsules made (for customers),” she said.
“We’re not pill-pushers,” added Warren.
The capsules have developed from an elk business the Ziolkowskis began in 1990. They wanted to get out of grain farming on their 2,800 acres and took a chance on elk. They began with 13 females and now have about 275 in the herd.
Ziolkowski owns some of the elk outright, while others are owned in an arrangement with investors.
“We just give them feed and water, an eight-foot fence and pasture and they pretty well take care of themselves,” Warren said. “We leave them a little bit wild.”
Vaccinations and deworming are done regularly and the herd has clean status with Agriculture Canada, he said. Every three years the federal government does a complete herd health test.
The family uses meat from cows too old to calve or bulls that won’t grow horns anymore.
A director of the Saskatchewan Game Farmers Association, Ziolkowski said the elk industry is relatively young and processing facilities do not yet exist to make meat production truly profitable.
The animals are valued most as breeding stock and for their velvet.
Top quality velvet is bringing about $170 per kilogram in Korea. “It’s really the velvet side that drives the prices for the animals.”
At Ziolkowski Farms, the velvet-covered horns are cut at the end of May or early June. Warren emphasizes that they are removed humanely. The horns are frozen and the animal restrained in a hydraulic squeeze for removal.
To make the capsules, the horns are sent to a drying plant in Kitscoty, Alta., where the velvet is peeled off and the inside of the horn is ground into a powder.
“It’s tested for salmonella, encapsulated, bottled, labeled and packaged,” he said. “We distribute it from our home.”
About three kilograms of wet horn make one kilogram of dried horn, and that will make 3,500 capsules of the pure elk product or 7,000 of the elk and ginseng capsules.
Bulls can produce good quality velvet for as long as 15 years. Ziolkowski said a two-year-old will produce three to four kilograms of velvet and twice that much or more after age five.
As for the sale of live animals, bull calves earn about $2,000, heifers $5,000, bred heifers $8,000, cows $6,000 to $9,000 and bulls from as little as $5,000 to as much as $50,000, he said.
