What is called a shepherd of a reindeer herd? Associations to the word “Herd”

Ekaterina Bobretsova

Tasks:

1. Introduce children to the profession reindeer herder, plague worker, reindeer herder.

2. Cultivate a respectful attitude towards the indigenous people, a sense of pride, and love for the small Motherland.

3. Show value deer in the life of northern peoples.

Vocabulary work: Nenets, nomadic, reindeer husbandry, reindeer moss, chum, camp, reindeer herder, pasture, deer, plague worker, sledges, malitsa, ornament)

Progress of the lesson:

Every day, always, everywhere.

On activities in the game,

We speak boldly and clearly

And we sit quietly.

Guys, please tell me the name of our small Motherland, the district in which we live (N.A.O.)

What kind of people nationalities live here?

Name the indigenous people of N.A.O?

Educator: Yes, the Nenets are indigenous people. They have been living here for a long time. These are very brave and strong, hardworking people. They lead a nomadic lifestyle, often wandering from one place to another, in search of pastures (food for their deer, guard the herd, train reindeer for sled. In addition, their responsibilities include the manufacture and repair of sleds, sleds, skis, nets, and hunting equipment. Men also hunt and fish. Usually, reindeer herders It is customary to wake up with the sunrise, at approximately 5 o'clock in the morning.

What is the name of the profession of the Nenets who herd deer(reindeer herders)

What do you think they are doing? reindeer herders?

Their main occupation - reindeer herding. Repeat the word. (children repeat the word in chorus and individually) This is a Nenets farm.

What do they eat? deer? (reindeer moss)

They will eat deer food-moss moss, go further, and behind them reindeer herders. The place where they live reindeer herders, called a camp. (the story is accompanied by illustrations)

Maybe you know the name of the house where they live reindeer herders(the teacher shows the layout of the plague)

What is chum made of? (chum is made from deer skins) The tent can be quickly disassembled and transported to another place)

Guys, who do you think is looking after deer when are they grazing in the pasture? (reindeer herders)

Educator: Deer the herd is under observation most of the time reindeer herders, who drive around the herd on light sleds, making sure that the animals do not lag behind and, as necessary, drive it to new pastures. The main tool of labor the reindeer herder is the lasso(showing an illustration, and the assistant is a husky dog. Owners value a good dog. They are taught to herd strays into the herd deer, help drive the herd in the right direction, drive deer in a bunch. A large herd is guarded by two shepherds and several dogs.

Guys, which herd is easier to protect, large or small?

Educator: In fact, it is easier to guard a large herd, since in this case you have deer The feeling of herdness develops more strongly, they scatter less. Shepherds and dogs must carefully protect the flock, as deer quite a lot of enemies.

Why do the shepherds do this?

Educator:In order to the deer were not far behind, and move the herd as needed to new pastures. The duties of shepherds also include protecting the flock from wolves, which often attack deer, especially in autumn, on dark nights. Deer plays a huge role in the life of the indigenous peoples of the North. Northern deer- a noble animal, the indigenous people live with all their lives deer. Deer is an animal, which feeds and clothes the indigenous population. Deer running through deep snow where it is impossible to drive a car. Guys, as you already know, winter is very harsh in the North, but these people are not afraid of any frost.

Why do you think?

Guys, what are the names of the clothes and shoes? reindeer herders?

(show national clothes)

What is it made of? (children's answers)

Educator: Yes, these are fur clothes, but they are not called fur coats, they are called malitsa. Malitsa is sewn from deer skin with fur inside, Women decorate it with ornamental patterns. The shoes on my feet are also made of deer fur. Please note that all clothes and shoes are sewn by women. You can't buy clothes like this in stores.

What are the women who watch the plague called? (plague workers)

(children's answers)

Educator: A woman is the keeper of the hearth, the holder of sacred fire and smoke. The plague workers have a lot of work a lot of: They sew, heat the stove, cook, pick berries, take care of children, install and dismantle tents.

Mystery: Deer runs away from them, but they don’t lag behind. (sled)

What is a sledge (children's answers)

This is a sleigh that is harnessed to deer. (showing the sled)

Invite the children to draw a chum. (exhibition of drawings)

Summarizing:

If you want to see with your own eyes,

What does human labor do?

Come to us at noon and at night,

Look how the Nenets live here.

Not like a fairy tale, but slowly, difficultly,

Having given free rein to both the winds and the snows,

The gloomy tundra is conquered

To human miracle hands.

(V. Ledkov)

Millions of years ago, the territory of modern Far North was a fertile land and a real “sanatorium” for herbivores. Natural disasters of the Ice Age destroyed this paradise, pushing aside bison and wild horses, destroying mammoths and woolly rhinoceroses. The only one who managed to survive in the new climatic conditions was the reindeer.

Nowadays, the range of reindeer covers the tundra and forest-tundra of the Old and New Worlds from approximately 52 degrees to 81 degrees northern latitude. Thanks to such a widespread distribution, representatives of different populations differ from their relatives both in appearance and in their way of life. Deer from the Kola Peninsula cannot be confused with those living in Taimyr or Yamal, and American caribou cannot be confused with the Chukchi hargin.

If we compare the external characteristics of a northerner with the beauty of red deer, he clearly loses: he is less graceful and has short legs. But what an expressive “face” he has. Large dark eyes hargina, framed by light hair, soft moving lips and frivolous rozan corolla curly hair above the wide forehead between impressive strong horns, which are found not only in males, but also in females. During the rutting season of tundra deer (late October-November), adult males use this formidable weapon to intimidate rivals. They snore at each other, hang their heads low, and lock horns. Although such skirmishes rarely end in bloodshed, the spectacle is not for the faint of heart. At the end of the mating season, males shed their antlers, but females wear them all winter. This helps them protect the feeding holes from the encroachment of other members of the herd, and the more decisive ones drive away hornless males from the reindeer moss they have dug up.

If we evaluate the physical capabilities of Khargin, allowing him to live in these harsh lands, then they are out of competition. The deer's body and even its nose are covered with hair, and each hair is like a tube, the core of which is filled with air, which makes its “outfit” light and warm. The winter cover is incredibly thick and allows it to withstand frosts down to 60° Celsius. Another adaptation that allows the deer to make many kilometers of migrations, overcoming marshy swamps and slippery snow crust, are wide hooves, which are very mobile and can move widely apart, thereby increasing the area of ​​support. In addition, reindeer are excellent swimmers and can overcome significant water obstacles during transitions.

Everyone has reindeer There is good reasons for such long migrations. The first of them is a specific food supply: food preferences have been refined over thousands of years and are fixed at the genetic level. It is because of this that hargins are rare inhabitants of zoos: it is extremely difficult to provide the animal with adequate food. During the existence of the deer in the tundra, it has developed a certain migration route. “In the summer, the reindeer herder is vile,” say the Chukchi. It is these insects, as well as gadflies and midges, that drive animals closer to the ocean coast, for airflow that saves them from bloodsuckers. Here they eat alpine herbs, dwarf tree branches, mushrooms, and berries. On occasion they do not disdain lemmings. In winter, food in the tundra becomes scarce, and deer go to the northern sparse forests to reindeer pastures, where the snow is not too deep and the animals can dig for food. The length of the migration circle is more than 500 kilometers. This is a record among land mammal migrations. Interestingly, by the time the reindeer return to the “beginning of the circle,” the reindeer moss has time to recover. This lichen is very rich in carbohydrates, but poor in proteins and minerals. Therefore, to maintain nutritional balance, they often gnaw on shed antlers, and sometimes gnaw them right on their neighbor’s head.

It must be said that domesticated animals live the same way as their wild relatives, only under the supervision of people who roam with them. This branch of livestock farming originated in the 18th century, but gained special scope in the middle of the past. “Give me a million deer,” “Let’s make reindeer husbandry mechanized!” such slogans preceded the labor exploits of the past five-year plans. It was even proposed to grow pack hargins, for which special devices were made. But the experienced reindeer herders resolutely ignored these instructions from above, realizing what a serious danger the hard crust posed to loaded reindeer. Winters in Chukotka have little snow and there are no snowdrifts. The Arctic wind compacts the snow cover so much that it becomes stronger than concrete, while its surface is covered with sharp sastrugi. Even an animal so adapted to the conditions of the North severely wounds its legs and cannot find food for itself among these ice daggers, which means it faces starvation.

Modern reindeer husbandry is primarily breeding work. In early spring shepherds lead the flock to sorting, or, as they call it here, corralization (corral corral). Deer are vaccinated, blood is taken for tests, measurements are taken, young animals are branded, and some of the young males destined for meat are castrated so that they gain weight faster. But the main goal is to separate the female deer (deer expecting offspring). Thanks to this, it is easier to protect the young; young animals in large herds can easily be trampled by adult animals. Coralization is always a holiday, especially for boys who demonstrate in front of experienced reindeer herders their ability to throw a lasso, or chaat, as it is called here.

The sorting takes place as follows. The herd is driven closer to the village. About a dozen local volunteers, holding a long, specially sewn piece of tarpaulin in their hands, surround the animals, which are in a circular motion, and, approaching them, gradually compact the herd. Deer are not obstinate, so for them even such a symbolic barrier serves as a signal to stop. After the herd has stood up, they begin to lead the reindeer one by one through the passage, where their future fate is decided: the weak animal simply will not reach the new pasture. Well, these are the harsh laws of a harsh region.

The stormy theme of autumn was growing: among the greens and yellows of the tundra there were red spots. But the deer had not yet appeared. During the whole of August, only three single males passed by us; the first two had horns covered in velvet, the last one was covered in blood. The velvet had come off, leaving only a two-foot flap hanging from the highest tip, like a veil hanging from a medieval hairstyle. Will the main stream of autumn migration pass through these places, like last year? This seemed unlikely: the previous rotation now began far up Easter Creek.

The wolf cubs put on their autumn coats. Black guard hair, six inches long, began to cover the thick creamy fur and young undercoat. The wolf cubs became adult wolves.

The colors of the tundra became richer day by day. The greenery has disappeared. In the long polar twilight, the red color thickened and flickered so warmly below, among the yellow spots under our mountain, that the gaze was involuntarily drawn to it, as if to a light. On the long terraces across the river, the tundra was tawny with a red base and resembled a warm, living body under dull fur. And yet the colors continued to thicken. At dusk the air itself seemed to be saturated with color. The terraces rose one above the other with wide crimson steps, and above them mountain peaks looked menacingly, gray with snow, through which the blackness of the stone was visible; Now they looked much more terrifying than later, when they became completely white.

I don’t know whether it was Andy’s last visit before the freeze-up, or whether the fall itself brought despondency to us. That evening we looked through the mail. The rain drummed on the roof, and the lantern at the head of the bed hissed and blazed brightly.

We were especially upset by the article we received by mail about a nature film, from which it was clear that nature in this film was greatly embellished.

Sometimes I really want frankly boring truthfulness and scope,” Chris said thoughtfully.

It was an hour of sober examination of our entire lives.

“I didn’t live up to your hopes,” I said, childishly asking for consolation.

Chris smiled and hugged me.

I achieved something I could never have dreamed of. I climbed up here to Brooks Ridge. I don't live in a tent, but in a house! I have a stove, a primus stove, peaches, grapes, tomatoes, meat!

I spent the next few days moping around. It was just a longing for female society, although I was not aware of it. The last time I saw the woman was many months ago. On my mother's birthday, the feeling of melancholy reached its peak. A trivial incident from my life, which seemed forever forgotten, came to my mind, probably because it spoke about the possibility of human communication, and above all with women. Once, while traveling, my mother and I stopped to spend the night at the same farm. In the morning, after we had breakfast alone in the dining room, mother went to the friendly owners in the large, neat kitchen to pour herself more coffee. All of her - hair, face, eyes - seemed to be woven from the sun. For women busy with work, it was a moment of ease and fun - calm friendliness entered the very thick of business. The moment when handshakes and human kindness inspire unexpected self-confidence. A moment infinitely far from the moment when a person says: “Oh, I never thought that I would have to die like this.”

Along with this memory came another, as if from a remote forest thicket - for such are the memories of a person who never strays as far from an animal as we are inclined to assume - the dying cry of some small animal in the night: “I don’t want to die!"

That evening I went out open sky and stood alone behind the barracks for a long time.

It was quiet. A faint noise came from the river, drowning in the storms and unrest of August and the first half of September. Huge, a quarter of the snow-capped mountain range up Easter Creek, the moon rose from behind the mountains, lighting up the sky with blue light. Under my feet the sloping roof of the barracks became lighter, the same color as the tundra. Below, at the foot of the mountain, darkness reigned.

It was cold - probably even very cold. But nature seemed to appear anew to the eye - the same “nature” that was so easy to love in the temperate zone and which had been forgotten, which was not remembered here. Everything seemed somehow benevolent, sweet, delightful, as if filled with some kind of responsiveness: then “Arctic euphoria” began.

The next morning the colors disappeared. The mountains and tundra were that incredible gray-brown color that you see them when they emerge from under the snow.

The weather was wonderful - sunny and quiet. Sludge floated down the river, solidifying into ice near the banks. The wolf cubs were fascinated by the thin icy border that had grown along the edges of the puddles. They stepped on it, fell through, hit it with their paws, and carried away pieces of ice in their teeth.

The night of September 19 was so cold that I went to the barracks to brush my teeth, although I felt in my gut that there should be “illumination” today. When I ran out to Chris's call, I lost my breath.

Lights northern lights hung over your head and filled the entire sky... Soft whiteness, stretching with an immensely wide belt from east to west, and the stars shine through it. Bright spots of light in the north and east, originating in some invisible light behind the mountains. What life-likeness! What liveliness and mobility in the structure itself!

The stormy theme of autumn was growing, and just at its peak the trumpet sounds of migration were heard.

The morning after the northern lights it was fourteen degrees above zero.

Chris brought our sleeping bags out to air. A little sun, a haze of clouds, a wind from the northwest. I started preparing breakfast.

Lois! - he called.

I ran out to him.

Tie Tutch.

As I approached the dog, I looked west from the edge of the mountain. There were deer there.

They followed a migratory pace from northwest to southeast, heading across the ridge to their winter quarters. They moved in an intermittent column, as usual during autumn migration.

We took a movie camera and wolves and went down to the foot of the mountain to wait for the deer. Chris positioned himself on one side of the rutted migration channel, and I positioned myself on the other, hiding behind a hill from the approaching animals. The wolf cubs huddled at my feet, whining softly from nervous tension.

Behind the hill came the clatter of hooves on the frozen grass, a deep, piercingly calm “ma!” a fawn is a pleasant sound, like a part of the wind and tundra itself. Behind the hill moved living, soft, suede-like, beautiful gray bodies, each a world in itself, each with a slightly different fur coat from the others.

An agile fawn, galloping after its queen, suddenly dived under it to feed. Two males had dazzling, sparkling white horns; Ice had frozen on them, apparently after they dipped them in water. The rest of the deer, including the females, had blood-red antlers. Some had flaps of velvet flapping on their horns, and the wind carried them forward; the deer walked with the wind, not sensing any danger - neither the smell of wolves, nor the smell of humans.

Frightened wolf cubs huddled close to me and crawled into the bushes. In the interval between the columns, Alatna, seeing a lone female with a cub, started to chase them, but quickly turned back: a herd of adult males was approaching. The blades of rosettes, like huge brown leaves, hung over their muzzles, their chests were covered with thick white fur.

An hour has passed. I began to feel uneasy: the wolf cubs were bored, and if they ran away, who knows whether they would return home; They had never gone out into the tundra alone before. In the end they really ran away - to their favorite place games on sandbanks.

Hour after hour, the deer came and went into the distance, towards the snow-dusted mountains. Among them there were cripples. A male, moving like a rocking horse, accompanied by a small herd of devoted females; Seeing us, he stopped in fear, but then continued on his way. A fawn with a protruding shoulder blade, either broken or dislocated. A female, forcibly dragging her stiff leg behind her. Another crippled female, alone making her way in the gap between the columns.

We were not in the main channel of migration, but only on one of its largest branches. Single animals and animals straying from the herd will continue to walk here for several more days, gradually decreasing in number. At four o'clock in the afternoon the main stream of migration dried up. Chris began to gather his photographic supplies.

I walked straight home along the steep slope of Table Mountain. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Mr. Barrow jumped up to me, whining. He was terribly glad that he had found me, but this gave him only momentary consolation: like me, he was eager to find the rest of the wolf cubs.

When I reached the top, I howled. The wolf cubs answered, and from the side where it would never have occurred to us to look for them. They sat on the tawny ridge to the north of us, barely visible in the red bushes, and did not want to return home. Then Chris arrived in time, and we began to howl in duet, persuading them to return. The wolf cubs persisted: for the last few hours in the tundra, in their opinion, something was wrong, and they felt uneasy. Even while passing the deer, I heard an alarming, lost howl, apparently from Mr. Barrow. For a wolf to feel normal, it is necessary that everything around him be as it should be. He recoils even from the new laces, which violate the set of signs that make up the concept of “friend.”

In the end, I went to “persuad” the wolf cubs with pieces of meat, and they followed me. At the same time, I monotonously sang the call that ended our daytime walks: “Now let’s go home and eat some meat.”

This day was permeated with the moods of many living beings, including our pity for the sick and crippled, trudged along the tundra. More than once a day I wished that Chris would have a gun and help some cripple die. But Andy had long ago taken the gun from us, planning to hunt moose.

The next morning it was ten degrees above zero. A gray swell was walking across the lake, but in the middle and on one edge it was smooth and transparently dark. It was ice. The deer came with the freeze-up, the partridges will arrive with the first snow.

“Slow” male deer, “rocking horses”, “tired” fawns - they all trailed behind the migration. An elegant gray female adorned with antlers walked alone with a “tired” fawn. She ran forward, hitting the ground diagonally with her hands, easily carrying her flexible body and slightly hesitantly turning her head to the side. Then she stopped and waited until the fawn, slowly and strainingly moving its legs, was almost level with her, then she ran on. Apparently, she really wanted to catch up with the deer that had gone ahead. Perhaps the “tired” fawns were just sick?

These days we saw two terribly frank scenes from the life of the tundra.

On September 29, the sky became overcast with dark clouds, the tundra turned brown and plunged into twilight. Now Tutch went for walks with us. We walked along thickets of willow trees along paths made by deer against the course of migration (Tutch ran ahead with the wolf cubs) and suddenly froze in place. Ahead, on a hill between the hills, stood two female deer. They just showed up and immediately saw us.

Tutch rushed towards them. Five wolf cubs followed her hesitantly, gaining courage from her. One of the females ran. The other, oddly enough, stood still and, looking down at Tutch, made barking sounds. Fearing the animal, which did not flee, Tutch, without any visible hope of success, rushed after the running deer and soon disappeared from view.

Meanwhile, the young wolves, with uncertain lunges, one after another, approached the standing deer - it was a one-year-old female. Every now and then they stopped, raised their heads and looked at her: young wolves are afraid of large animals. They hesitated. But they were natural deer hunters and in the end they chased the doe. She ran straight towards us along the migration route.

It was a strange hunt. The deer ran, slightly slipping on the ice-covered puddles. Behind her, stretched out in a chain, the wolves clumsily scampered.

It was incredible, but that's how it was. Although she did not run very fast, they still could not catch up with her. About fifty feet from us, she stood in front of them, knelt down, and lay down. The cubs, still not daring to approach, surrounded her in a reddish-brown crowd. Safe and sound, she stood up, turned and ran on, but after a few yards she turned to face them again and lay down. This time the wolf cubs did not let her out.

Finish her off! - I begged. - With a knife, with anything!

I ran home to get some weapons. On the way back I met Chris.

“They’ve already gnawed at her throat,” he said.

We went to the corpse. The wolves' faces were smeared with blood. We examined the deer's body. The lungs were only partially inflated. There were eight abscesses, some the size of ping-pong balls, partially hidden by lung tissue. They looked like cysts formed by pulmonary tapeworms.

The next day we headed back along the migration route again.

A lone deer appeared towards us, and Tutch chased it. A waste of time, we thought, but as soon as the deer and the dog disappeared over the hill, I realized that the incredible was about to happen.

She will catch up with him! - I said.

It seems so.

The barking was getting closer. Chris set up the movie camera. A deer and a dog appeared and they ran towards us. The wolves cautiously moved towards them. Tutch grabbed the deer by the hind leg and pulled.

The deer fell, then rose with difficulty, twisting his shoulder blades and straining his neck to the ground, but his hind legs did not obey him. Tutch hamstrung him.

He lay down and lay quietly, without betraying his torment in any way, deceptively calm, as if he was resting, while around him that monstrous thing was happening, from which one must run and run: screams, whistles, the bustle of shaggy animals, smelling of death and horror. He again made a desperate attempt to get up, but Tutch quickly, fiercely shook his wounded leg and grabbed him by the throat. The wolves hesitantly closed in a circle.

It was an eerie, sad sight. It seems to me that it forever cast a shadow of severity on my face.

Only the next day we went to the scene of the incident to find out why it was a “slow” deer. But this was impossible, since the carcass was almost completely removed by wild wolves. All that remained were a few piles of gnawed bones, scattered along the edge of the willow thickets; the wild animals carried the meat there in pieces and ate it in the shelter next to each other.

We were examining these remains, when suddenly our wolves broke loose and ran away from us as fast as they could, obviously smelling some kind of smell. We hurried after them and came to the carcasses of two deer, driven by wild wolves. The carcasses were almost intact; no doubt the wild wolves expected to return to them. After all, a killed animal is like a storehouse of meat.

One of the deer was a male, and Chris later “stole” meat from the carcass, saving it for future use for our wolves. The other was a cub. It was he who revealed to us the secret of the “rocking horses.”

We saw “rocking horses” from the very beginning of our stay in the Arctic: very few in May, many in July. In all likelihood, they did not survive winter, considering how difficult it is for them to tear through the snow in search of food.

Therefore, by killing the rocking horse, the wolves were killing an animal that probably would not have survived the winter anyway.

At first we decided that the “rocking horses” were deer with broken legs. However, the fawn had a swollen, diseased leg. Half of the horny covering of the hoof was gone, the remaining one dangled on the swollen leg, which looked like a bloody, fleshy stump or stump. The whole leg was covered long hair- a sign that the animal hardly used it. We had before us clear evidence of the prevalence of hoof disease among deer.

Over the next few days we found two more dead fawns. Or rather, they were not found, but were brought to them by wolves. One of them was so cleverly hidden in a willow tree on the bank of a snow-covered stream - probably by an arctic fox - that we could never have found it ourselves. All that was left of the carcass was the skinned chest; there were no legs. It is likely that we would find signs of hoof disease on them. Another fawn, like the very first, had a swollen, diseased leg.

Deer carcasses were rarely found. On the heels of the migration was a pack of no more than five wolves, the same as last year. But during all the time that we walked along the migration route, combing the area with the help of our wolves, we found only these four carcasses of animals killed by wild cinders - three fawns, two of which were clearly crippled, and one male. There can be little doubt that this buck, like the deer driven by Tutch, was “slow.” Wolves simply cannot compete in a race with healthy deer.

During our entire stay in the Arctic, the only healthy reindeer that fell prey to wolves before our eyes were fawns in the midst of a large herd. We have seen many cases of wolves hunting deer. One day, Silver Mane drove a deer over the hill. We did not see the end of the hunt, but we knew that the wolf would be with the prey. Within a minute after the start of the hunt, you can tell what its outcome will be. A prey deer is a deer that cannot run fast. But he cannot run fast either because of hoof disease, or because his lungs are infected with a tapeworm, or because his nostrils are clogged with botfly larvae. And if a sick deer dies, this is not a loss for the herd, but for the animal itself - relief from suffering.

On the other hand, we saw how deer, who at first glance found themselves in a hopeless situation, walked away from the wolves. For example, pregnant females in May, just before calving. And also the cubs. We saw how a healthy fawn, running along with the herd, easily kept up with the adults. He didn’t even seem to be running, but, as Chris put it, he was “pacing the ground” - throwing his legs forward so far that he seemed to be rushing through the air, and this happened to him completely automatically.

Even the “rocking fawn,” as we happened to observe once, kept pace with the herd, running away from Tutch.

Wolves destroy deer selectively, selecting not the strongest, but the weakest. They did the same with the bison in our old West. Let us recall the apt observation made in 1804 by Captain Clark (Lewis and Clark Expedition): “Everywhere near large herds of buffalo I notice wolves. When the bison move, the wolves follow them and devour those that die by accident or are too weak and skinny to keep up with the herd.”

But is it good that healthy fawns also die? The convincing answer to this was provided by the reindeer themselves, far south of the Arctic Circle, just as we were wandering along the reindeer migration routes here in the cold autumn tundra.

There, in the south, in 1947, a “fight” against wolves was launched in order to protect the Nelchinsky deer herd, which then numbered 4,000 heads.

Ten years later it was already 42,000 heads - an incredible figure!

True, accounting is not always carried out using the same methods, and perhaps the first figure is grossly underestimated, and the second is overestimated. Nevertheless, there was undoubtedly a jump in the increase in livestock. But here’s the problem: the area of ​​winter pastures remained unchanged. As Dr. Starker Leopold and Dr. Fraser Darling report in their book Alaskan Wild Animals, these grasslands were apparently severely depleted as early as 1953. By 1957, the lichen cover on them had been trampled, torn, and crushed, but the deer stubbornly grazed in the same places and did not want to move to well-preserved pastures. In the same year, the service for the protection of wild animals and fish resources was forced not only to abandon the extermination of wolves in the Nelchin area, but also to declare it a kind of wolf reserve and prohibit the shooting of wolves there. In other words, on the Nelchin pastures the wolf was taken under the protection of the law, whereas before there had been a merciless fight against it.

This one-hundred-eighty-degree turn was caused by the fear that the size of the reindeer herd might exceed its feeding capacity in winter conditions. After many years of fighting wolves, administrative authorities saw in the wolf a useful, indeed, a necessary regulator of the process of deer reproduction and abandoned the program for its destruction. It was a colossal step forward in public understanding of where actual conservation of wild animals ends and the reckless bashing of scapegoats begins.

One night, an eerie, like an obsession, event happened: a large wolf climbed up our mountain. We found his tracks in the morning in the freshly fallen snow; they led up the path to the barracks and pen. Is it possible that Kurok was running along with the flock that was prowling around and that he decided to “drop in home” when the flock ran past? Once it seemed to us that he came at night, but then there was no snow and we did not find any traces.

On October 7th the last deer passed us. For us, this was the last of the migrations, like pulse beats marking the time of our stay in the Arctic.

Scientists suggest that reindeer husbandry in southern Siberia arose about four thousand years ago. N.Ya. Marr, an expert on the East, suggested that the population of Sayan-Altai used deer as a domestic animal long before the horse and bull.
In the past, this animal was of exceptional importance in people's lives. Without deer, man would not be able to develop the vast expanses of the mountain taiga as hunting grounds. For centuries, reindeer herders of the past have accumulated experience in keeping deer, these unpretentious, submissive animals. Deer differs from other animals in its greatest adaptability to the conditions of both mountain taiga and mountain tundra.

The climatic conditions and characteristics of the Sayans and a certain food supply (this is not only moss, but also young grass, some shrubs and mushrooms) force the deer to constantly change grazing places. Man, adapting to the habits of the deer, was forced to live where the deer needed it. And hence, in the past, the way of life of the people - the Tofa, a resident of the central Sayan, his constant migrations with his entire family within the territory. This special arrangement of the home is a plague and the presence in the household of only the most necessary things.

Since the 30s of our century, toffs gradually moved to sedentary lifestyle life. And if previously the whole family lived in close proximity to nature, everyone was engaged in reindeer husbandry: both adults and children, but now the reindeer herds of the Tofalar Animal Farm Farm are grazed by a dozen and a half shepherds, and several female calves and calves go to the herds during calving. One might think that such a reorganization of the way of life of reindeer hunters should have changed the special maintenance of reindeer, but climatic conditions and the annual cycle of changing pastures remained the same as before, therefore the forms and methods of reindeer husbandry, basically, remain the same.

This article is devoted to a description of the production work of reindeer herders throughout the year.

The work was written on the basis of direct observations in the transport herd on Migalma near the village of Alygdzher in early June 1989, as well as the collection of information during the IGOM expedition to Tofalaria in June-July 1991 and special business trips to the village of Alygdzher in September-October 1991. 11 people were interviewed: 5 shepherds, 5 shepherds and calf farmers and one livestock specialist, currently retired.

When does the year of the reindeer herder begin? - I asked the reindeer herders. Everyone named a different time - Well, since January, of course! , From the summer deer count. From spring calving of deer, etc.

But many consider the beginning of the year to be the time of birth of Anai fawns - these extremely defenseless, gentle, timid creatures. The female calves, who worked in the reindeer herd almost all their lives, giving the warmth of their hands to nursing the anai, remember this period with special warmth, although there were more than enough worries and anxiety of work.
Of course, you can take any starting point for the beginning of the year from the entire cycle of work, but it is logical to describe the year of the reindeer herder from the time of the revival of nature in the spring, and the author is pleased to begin a kind of report from April, when preparations for the deer department begin.

As Nerkha shepherds I.P. Shibkeev noted. and Shibkeev V.R. migrations of all reindeer herds of Tofalaria take place at the same time. The main reason for the transition to other pastures in the Sayan taiga is the special mode of life and nutrition of the deer. The change of season forces reindeer herders to move to where it is better for the reindeer, where better conditions nutrition. The deer dictates the cyclical nature of all movements of the shepherds of the reindeer herd. This form of management and life of reindeer herders-hunters was developed by thousands of years of experience, came from the depths of centuries and has been preserved to this day.

The first migration begins at the end of March, beginning of April, when shepherds drive reindeer from winter pastures to a convenient place for calving. It is chosen in advance. This should be a relatively flat area, usually at the mouth of large streams or rivers, where there is enough food. Some spring pastures were used more than once. They returned here after a certain period of time, after the moss grew up. But if the pasture did not have time to become scarce in a year, then the reindeer were brought here for calving for several years in a row. For example, on Migalma (Alygdzher), where a herd has been standing for a decade and a half. Senior shepherd V.N. Shibkeev explained: There is enough food here. In spring, summer and autumn, deer feed not only on reindeer moss, but also on young grass and shrubs (dwarf birch and willow, honeysuckle, mushrooms, moss from trees). On Migalma you can keep up to 400 deer for many years. There is a comfortable, vast area with varied landscapes. Eat mushroom places, areas with grass, in general in this taiga there is a lot of moss and good pastures.
As a rule, before calving, shepherds do convenient site pen for deer and calves. Sometimes old ones are used, and in the Nerkha herd they prefer to do without pens at all. They managed to develop their own justified system of techniques for caring for calves and mothers. And the mothers are brought in early so that they get used to the pastures, tamed to the camp, where salt licks are always made.
The heifers try to arrive at the place by April 20, since individual fawns begin to calve already at the end of April (the tofs call them ingen, in the literature it’s nice - vazhenka).

IN last years Fewer and fewer women come to calving; they are replaced by male calf raisers.
As soon as the female calves arrive at the herd, they immediately accept ingens from the shepherds and mark them using the old method. They use scissors or a knife to cut their initials on the sides of the calves if the broodstock is large and has several calves. When an anai fawn is born, the same is done on its sides. If the herd is small, then numbers are cut on the sides of both Ingen and Anaya. Previously, the ingenu had a distinctive ribbon tied to the horns of each calf if the herd was large. But even without these marks, every calf knows her ingens well, by sight.

Ingeni calve at different times - they begin at the end of April and end in mid-June. Mass calving may be delayed or accelerated by one to two weeks. This depends on various reasons: on the state of the weather, on the fatness of the reindeer, on how the reindeer are kept in winter, and most importantly, on the timing of the reindeer’s rutting season in the fall. If the deer become pregnant at the same time in the fall, then the calving dates of all ingenes will also be more or less the same. Nerkha shepherds say that calving ends before mid-June, and by June 20 they go to reindeer pastures. The same is stated by the shepherd of the transport herd V.V. Shibkeev. (on Migalma). But in the herds on Hailom and Barbitay, calving continues until the end of June, and only at the beginning of July do they migrate to Belogorye. This was reported by P.N. Ungushtaev, V.V. Adamova, G.N. Adamova.

Now in the cooperative animal farm they have begun to practice the so-called free grazing, that is, the ingens are not tied before calving, they graze freely, and appear at the camp to get enough salt. Experienced female calves, as a rule, immediately determine when the female calf should calve and immediately before calving they tie it either at the pen or nearby, choosing a dry, level, comfortable place. But now young guys work as calf raisers; they have little experience in this matter, they cannot determine the timing of calving, and therefore the ingeni are increasingly lost in the taiga. It is easy to detect the departure of important women into the taiga. If one of the females does not appear at the camp within one or two days, it means that she has left to calve and then the shepherd gets involved in the work. The search for ingen is difficult, they sometimes travel long distances (up to 10 km or more), but they do not go beyond the spring pasture - the need for salt keeps them going. The shepherd knows the area well, especially if he has worked for many years, and therefore guesses where the important one should calve. She always chooses a dry, elevated, flat place, somewhere under a cedar tree.

When a shepherd finds a doe and determines what condition the anai is in, if he is healthy, strong and grazes with his mother, then he tries to drive them to the camp. And if the anai is weak, then he leaves them for some more time so that the anai gets stronger. It is very difficult to catch a deer and the shepherd does not catch her. You cannot catch, take or carry anaya. If you move it, the female will always circle around the calving area, looking for it here. She won't be able to follow the trail to find him. Naturally, anai without milk can die. Another important woman will not let him near her, only her own. But more often than not, Ingen and Anay come to the camp themselves. The deer needs salt.

With such a system of “free” grazing, a large percentage of death of anae occurs, up to 30% (1990). They become prey to predators; some weakened ones die on the way to the camp, or drown when crossing large streams. Sometimes very weak anai are born. They cannot rise and reach their nipples to get enough, and then they die of hunger. Rarely, but sometimes it happens that the mother does not accept her anaya and leaves him.
All the old reindeer herders interviewed condemn the system of free grazing and remember with pleasure how it was before, ten years ago. As soon as the calves accept the ingens from the shepherds (and there were up to 45 of them), they immediately tie them up so that they do not run away. They are tied near the pens or next to the hut or tent, choosing places convenient for calving, dry and level. At night there are usually two people on duty, walking around several times at night and checking those ingens that are about to calve. At the hotel they take care of Anay, help Ingen, do everything that is needed.

They always help a weak newborn anai so that it can feed twice; to do this, hold the doe so that it does not spin, and lift the anai towards the nipples. Sometimes, immediately after birth, a weak anaya is sprinkled with salt on top so that the doe licks the anaya dry, the dry anaya immediately becomes warmer, after which the anaya must be fed immediately. In the event that mothers did not accept their anai, a trick was used. They milked the ingen a little and poured the milk over the fawn, then sprinkled salt on top and let the mother lick it. She will sniff it, lick it, and then she will definitely accept it.
During the day, all non-calving ingenes are taken on a leash to a pasture where there is fresh food. There everyone is tied to long poles lying on the ground, in which holes are cut for leashes. 2-3 deer are tied to one dog. The female calves, observing the order, are on duty in the pasture and make sure that the dog is moved to another place when the deer eat all the moss to the length of the leash. Sometimes the deer themselves move the dogs by pulling on the reins. This type of work is carried out with the entire group of deer. But if they think that the female may calve during the day, then they leave her at the camp. In this case, harvested moss is brought to her. When the important one calves in the pasture during the day, she is again under supervision and is given assistance. The advantages of this method are undoubted. All ingeni and anai are always under the supervision of reindeer herders. This ensures maximum safety of the offspring.
Of course, even now the calf farmers are trying to save all the anai, but with such a free system, losses are inevitable. And it’s not for nothing that old shepherds say: “Now many anai are dying on free grazing and there are fewer and fewer deer, soon there will be no deer at all.”

Now we should talk about the system of taming anai and the method of grazing ingens. Most main task During this spring period, the safety of both an individual anai and the entire herd is important in reindeer husbandry. At birth, any calf immediately determines its condition. If he is healthy and strong, then the worries are ordinary. But if it is weakened, then they try to help the fawn be sure to suckle its mother, and if they miss this moment, then it may not survive. To stimulate him to suck, massage his lips and tongue.
After the birth of any important woman, they are immediately released. Now she won’t go far, she will definitely come back. Each anaya is protected and nursed in every possible way. Experienced female calf breeders are good at taming fawns. They always try to stroke, caress, and talk to him. Salt is given whenever there is any contact with anai, especially when it is tied. Each calf always has salt in her pocket, and, taking a pinch of it, she pushes the anaya into her mouth. The calf shepherds are convinced that only with an affectionate attitude can they be made tame, and this is important in the future, since if the anai is not tamed, then the deer will be wild. It will be difficult to saddle him, and it will be difficult to catch him, even if he is entangled, but if he is not entangled, it will be almost impossible, only if you catch him in a pen.
It is very important to train the anaya to a leash. You need to start doing this immediately after calving. In the Alygdzher herds, this is the practice: after 3-4 hours, a bridle with a mungui is put on the newborn. (Mungui is a special wooden device for tying an anai). Then the anai gets used to it very quickly, if taming to the bridle is delayed for a day or two, then it takes a very long time to get used to it, rushing about. Most often, anaya is tied within a day.
In the Nerkha herd, four hours after birth, the anaya is tied to a soft linen ribbon; up to 10 cm wide, the mungui is still a hard bridle and at the beginning it is unpleasant for the anaya. In a day he will get used to the tape, they put on a bridle with a mungui.

The system of alternating grazing of ingen and anaya, as former livestock specialist E.N. Kangaraeva says, has existed among the Tofs for a long time. This system is well-established, proven by centuries of experience in reindeer husbandry. Main principle keeping deer and calves is that their grazing is strictly sequentially alternated. One of them is definitely on a leash. If anai is grazing, then ingen is on a leash, and vice versa. The instinct of motherhood is well used here. The calf cows are not allowed to go into the taiga together with ingen and anai, then the taming process is disrupted. This method allows you to preserve the offspring and tame the future deer to humans.
In the transport herd on Migalma and in other Alygdzher herds, the spring grazing system is single-shift, that is, during the day the anai are tied all day, and the deer graze; as a rule, during the day the ingens come running and feed the anai. In the evening, the deer are tied up, and the anae are released; they graze, run in the evening, and at night lie next to the deer.
In the Nerkha herd, as V.R. Shibkeev said, the anae are kept on a leash for the whole day, and are released to graze twice. At seven o'clock in the morning the anae are tied up, and the ingeni graze until lunch. At one o'clock in the afternoon the Ingens are tied up, and the Anai graze. At five o'clock in the evening the ingeni are released to graze until nine o'clock in the evening, and the anai are naturally tied up. And already at nine o’clock in the evening the Ingens are tied up again. And the anai graze in the night, and then go to bed at night near their mothers. In Nerja, as we see, a two-shift grazing system is implemented. Previously, such a system was in all herds; in all likelihood, it is more consistent with the tasks of taming deer and preparing them to work with humans.

A few words about the reins. For the deer, the shepherds themselves make special bridles. It represents a belt or rope wire with two loops at the end, one loop covers the neck below the ears, the other, the head, right at the horns, below the neck they are fastened. To tie an anaya, they use a mangun, an arched wooden plate, in the middle of which a wooden rod in the form of a bolt is inserted through a hole. A mungui rein is tied to the end of the bolt - a kind of wooden carabiner, thanks to which the rein does not twist. Nowadays they mostly use old Mungoons; new ones are rarely made. They tie deer and anae to everything possible: to roots, to trees, to specially cut stumps, to dogs, to corral poles, etc.

The calving of reindeer ends. The anaichiki are growing and getting stronger. Midsummer is approaching. It is getting warmer, and blood-sucking insects begin to appear, of which the most dangerous for deer is the spider web. It is he who forces the deer to seek protection from his cruel bites. And for the Sayan deer, it is possible to escape from it only in Belogorye, where cool and sometimes cold winds blow, driving away insects, where on a hot day you can find piles of last year’s snow on the northern slopes of the mountain ranges and wait there until the cool of the evening. No less painful are the bites of midges, mosquitoes, midges. In mid-June, the deer begins to shed, the hair and fur peels off and an undercoat remains - a thin layer of fluff. The insects easily reach the skin and sting the deer.
The pastures in the Hailema River basin, where the Aligdzher herd grazes, are surrounded on all sides by char. There the snow does not melt for a long time and the climate is colder. Pout appears only in early July. But in the Nerkha herd and on Migalma they have to roam from June 20 or a little later. Here the climate is warmer and insects appear earlier.
Senior shepherd of the Nerkha herd Shibkeev N.R. spoke about the transition of the herd from spring to summer pasture: a week after the birth of the last anaya, the herd migrates to the summer camp, in Belogorye, to the upper border of the forest. There is no particular need to drive the deer, they do not scatter, they go as a herd, since the spiders have already appeared, the deer leave in search of calm from them. And the Adamov calves reported on the method of driving: before driving into squirrels, we gradually caught and tied all the reindeer. Then everyone was driven away at once. A shepherd is leading several deer in front, and we are chasing behind. The deer don’t run away, they hurry there themselves, the spider drives, the midge drives.

The location of the summer camp is chosen in advance. The number of deer and the possibilities of food supply in the area are taken into account, as well as the frequency of exploitation of these pastures in past years. Pastures are located on open, lined ridges without woody vegetation, for example: Nerkhinsky and Khailominsky ridges. In these pastures good review, they are visible far away at long distances. Or sometimes they are located in the very upper reaches of rivers, at their sources, cirques, the ridges of which serve as natural boundaries of pastures. On the northern slopes of the cirque there is usually snow, sometimes until August.
In Belogorye, large areas are occupied by shrubs and plants: dwarf birch, various dwarf willows and others; there are subalpine meadows with a variety of grass. And on the border with the mountain tundra zone, in sparse forests of larch and cedar and a lot of moss, there is complete freedom for deer.
On Migalma, where the transport herd in Belogorye has a hut, but in other herds, next to the summer pasture on the border of the forest, a tent or tent is erected. Salt licks are always made near the camp. They don’t build corrals, but they use hemp for tying deer and make dogs.

Currently, as soon as the reindeer are driven to the upper camp, an audit of the entire herd is carried out. The accounting is carried out by the senior shepherd together with the calves. He accepts from them all: both Anaev and Ingeni. After this, the calf sheds are freed from work until next spring. Previously, calf sheds handed over their charges at the end of September before releasing the deer to hunters. Probably, there was a reason for this: all summer and part of the fall, the anai were under the careful supervision of experienced calf shepherds.
After registration, the entire herd switches to free grazing, that is, both anai and ingeni are not tied, although in some herds a partial spring grazing system is still used. Now the shepherds believe that in Belogorye the reindeer do not need to be tied, they will not leave the squirrels anywhere, and the tangle will not allow them to go down to the valley. Pout is a good shepherd. So the deer always come to the camp at least once a day to see the salt licks, and on hot days they are driven by the spiders onto the chimney, if there is no snow nearby. On the summer pasture, deer constantly graze in herds. But sometimes the herd is divided into large groups, which sometimes scatter quite far. However, searching in this case is not particularly difficult. They are found and driven back to the camp in a herd.

This is how July passes and August begins, at the beginning of which frosts are not uncommon in Belogorye. Already from the first days of August, mushrooms appear in the taiga river valleys - a great delicacy for deer and deer can no longer be kept at the top, it is necessary to move to autumn pastures.
Even at the beginning, not to the main pasture, but to river valleys where there are mushrooms. Shepherds plan such areas as temporary, intermediate pastures on the way to the main one. There is a corral nearby and salt licks are always arranged in it. If they are not planning to drive, then salt licks are made intermittently, since this is the only means of sometimes collecting deer for counting them. At this time, deer scatter throughout the taiga in search of mushrooms. They no longer travel in herds as before, but graze in small groups of 2-4 deer. This is how the oldest reindeer herder P.N. Ungushtaev spoke about this period: at this time it is very difficult for herders to look for deer. He who thinks well finds places where there are a lot of mushrooms. He drives the deer there too, they don’t run far from here, we make salt licks there, the deer all go there and lick the salt.

Already in the first days of September, deer begin to herd and gradually accumulate near the main autumn camp: some come on their own, others are found and driven by shepherds.
On the main autumn pasture in Lately They build huts for reindeer herders and always have good pens, usually two-section ones. The pens are made up to three meters high, but it is not possible to go any lower, as the deer easily jump over. At first, the corral is used for keeping anai, and then for counting deer. The anai continue to suckle their mother and the shepherds, using the kindred instincts of deer, try to keep the herd with the same spring grazing system: they tie the ingens during the day, and the anai at night.
In the first half of September, deer's antlers begin to be sawed off, as they are heavy, branchy and interfere with grazing. But additional difficulties are created by antlers when deer are used for transport purposes and for hunting. First of all, the horns of the breeding bull are removed, because during the mating rut, which begins, the bulls can inflict wounds on each other. At this time, the horns are still with blood, so they are tightly bandaged at the very base in advance so that they dry. Before hunting, the antlers of all riding deer are cut off without fail. This year, the antlers of some deer were removed in the summer and, after appropriate processing, they were sold as medicinal raw materials.
The mating rut of reindeer begins in mid-September. Each herd contains several breeding bulls, each of whom by this time creates their own harems. The rut ends in October. At this time, it is very important for shepherds that the covering of females takes place in a short time, this will have a positive effect on spring calving. That is why shepherds try to gather the entire herd in the first half of September.

At the beginning of October, either a team or individual hunters come to the herd from the village to select deer for hunting. They select and look for sleigh reindeer themselves, if they are wandering through the taiga at that moment. Along the way, the shepherds take stock of the entire herd before migrating for winter grazing. Previously, the calf shepherds handed over the ingens and anais to the senior shepherd at the same time, and, having received riding reindeer, they themselves went hunting. Retired calf farmers Adamov V.V. and G.N. they complain: we would still hunt now if they gave us deer. We can still shoot. Previously, they worked until old age and did not retire.

In the autumn, a veterinarian or livestock specialist comes to the herd and castrates the young bulls.
After completing all this work, the shepherds move the herd to winter pasture, this is in the second half of October.
As in other cases, before migrating, be sure to choose a suitable place. This should be higher in the mountains, a more or less flattened area in cedar trees. Usually there is enough reindeer moss in cedar trees. And in the middle part of the mountains it is warmer in winter. There are no winter stops along river valleys. As always, cold chyus pulls along rivers from the upper reaches, and it is difficult to protect against it. And also on mountain rivers ice dams are frequent. They humidify the air, and damp and cold air has a stronger effect on people and animals.
When choosing a pasture, the condition of reindeer moss plays an important role. Wet reindeer moss is highly undesirable for winter parking. They form in the fall, when after rain or wet snow the reindeer moss gets wet and becomes covered with an icy crust. It is very difficult for deer to get it from under the snow; you need to break the ice to get the moss. The deer damages its lips and tongue. Dry reindeer moss occurs when dry snow falls on already frozen ground. Of course, shepherds prefer to find pastures with just such moss.

There is no easy season in reindeer husbandry - this is natural. The work is associated with great physical stress, especially in cases with frequent unfavorable weather conditions. But in winter it is still more and more difficult, although in winter the deer stay in large groups and do not scatter far. There are, of course, exceptions; they are held back by their need for salt and pastures that are well chosen with dry reindeer moss and shallow snow.
November passes. In December, many hunters return their reindeer to the herd, and the shepherds have more work to do. All other deer taken for the hunting season are handed over at the end of February. In December, an audit of the entire herd is carried out, and the results of the year’s work are summed up. And as everyone believes everywhere, in reindeer husbandry, from that moment on, a new year began. But for reindeer husbandry, this date is not a milestone, a boundary beyond which something new begins. Here, in a lonely hut located far in the taiga, at a windswept altitude, you still need to go to work every day, seven days a week: look after the deer, look for them if they have gone far, and bring them back, protect them from wolves, and you never know what else is needed. The monotonous series of winter days continues to drag on, and there is still a very long wait for any changes, almost 3 months. For the New Year - only accounting, nothing new. Therefore, I dare to disagree with the statements that this date is the beginning of the year of the reindeer herder. I believe that the beginning of the year should be considered the time when nature awakens, the time when calving begins in the reindeer herd.

January, February and March begin, when the deer go out into the sun, where the layer of snow becomes thinner and it is easier to get moss out from under the snow. In March, preparations begin for the transition to spring pasture.
The difficult season in reindeer husbandry, which lasts almost half a year, is ending. The migration to the spring pasture is done in advance so that the deer get used to the new place before calving. Already in March, the herd descends into the valleys. The shepherds choose the sunny slopes, where the snow has already melted. Deer live in a herd. In early April, shepherds drive them to their spring camp.

So, a year has passed. And, although what is written is a weak reflection of reality, we can conclude that the work of a reindeer herder is difficult and dangerous, involving and dangerous, involving permanent shift places of work, and of course, reindeer herders deserve more attention and care than they actually receive.
So, in this article an attempt was made to show a far from complete picture of the life of a reindeer herder in Tofalaria during the year. Separately, I would like to dwell on those issues that were not sufficiently covered in the work. The author believed that the content should not have been loaded with distracting information. But they are important, and they will be discussed further.

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Reindeer husbandry in most regions of the Far North is the main branch of agricultural production. In addition to the main cash income, the population receives the main food product from reindeer - meat; winter clothes, shoes and shelters (chums, yarangas, bolkn) are made from reindeer skins. Deer is a transport animal, without which fur hunting is unthinkable. Reindeer transport is used by geological exploration, land management and other expeditions. Every year, various goods, food and materials are delivered to remote, inaccessible areas by reindeer. Beautiful light furs are made from deer skins, as well as high-quality suede, which is used in the aviation, optical, and shoe industries. Deer wool is used in the furniture and saddlery industries. Felt, knitted and other products that retain heat well are made from reindeer down. Discharged annually deer horns(antlers) are used to prepare glue and gelatin. Various bone products are also made from antlers.

Systems and methods of keeping deer. Depending on the geographical area, natural conditions, economics and national characteristics of the indigenous population in various reindeer herding areas, various forms of reindeer management are used.
Keeping deer in herds. The most perfect and appropriate collective form of reindeer husbandry is the system of year-round keeping of reindeer in herds. This system is used almost everywhere in the tundra and forest-tundra zones of the Far North. True, there are some differences in the organization of herd grazing in the northwestern (Nenets, Yamalo-Nenets national districts, Komi) and northeastern (Chukchi and Koryak national districts) regions of the country.
Thus, in the Nenets Okrug, herds of deer are guarded around the clock in all seasons of the year. For this purpose, reindeer herding dogs and reindeer teams on duty are widely used. Guarding the herd on foot is used only when grazing reindeer on forest winter pastures, with very deep snow cover that impedes the movement of the reindeer team, or in the heat of summer, when the riding animals get very restless and confuse the harness. But even during such periods, reindeer herders ride reindeer from the herd to the tent and back. The constant use of reindeer herding dogs and reindeer teams on duty makes the work of shepherds easier and more productive.
The situation is different in reindeer herding in the eastern regions of the country, where, with the year-round keeping of reindeer in herds, until recently, reindeer herding dogs were used to a very small extent, and the shepherds on duty herded the reindeer on foot in the summer and autumn, making limited use of reindeer teams in the winter and spring. This organization of herd maintenance of reindeer significantly complicates the already difficult work of the shepherd-reindeer herder.
Keeping deer in fenced areas. In some areas of mountain taiga and forest reindeer husbandry (Murmansk region, Evenki National District, Yakutia), to preserve reindeer, they are grazed in fenced pastures. When fencing an area, natural barriers are used to the maximum extent: lakes, rivers, impenetrable thickets of bushes, etc. If a fenced area of ​​pasture has a sufficient supply of feed, semi-free keeping of deer on it helps to quickly increase the fatness of the animals and guarantees their safety. Currently, many farms are switching to a system of keeping deer in fenced areas.
For the construction of fences, local materials can be used - poles and posts. But the best material should be considered galvanized wire mesh. This mesh with 10 cm cells is light, strong, durable and reliably fences off pasture areas.
Free-camp housing of reindeer provides for a significantly greater degree of reindeer domestication compared to other grazing systems. This degree of domestication is achieved by systematically feeding deer with mineral licks, food remains, periodically tying calves and their mothers near the nomadic dwelling, and protecting them from blood-sucking insects by breeding smokers. This method of keeping deer is widespread mainly in the taiga and mountain taiga zones of the Asian part of Russia.
Deer, from the very early age accustomed to constant contact with humans, with fairly frequent changes of pasture areas, they do not go far from the nomadic home of reindeer hunters

and get used to returning to it when danger arises - an attack by wolves, a mass appearance of midges, etc. But even with such a system of keeping animals, it is absolutely necessary from time to time to go around the grazing herd, collect deer and, therefore, have 1

1. shepherds responsible for maintaining the livestock.

When keeping deer in free camps, you can achieve good production indicators and obtain high-quality products. Therefore, this grazing system has prospects for development in forest reindeer husbandry.
Free grazing of deer. In some areas of reindeer husbandry (Kola Peninsula, Khanty-Mansiysk Okrug), free and semi-free keeping of reindeer was common. With this method of keeping reindeer, the females were released into pastures after calving. Animals grazed without protection and were exterminated in large numbers by predators. After the snow cover formed, the reindeer were collected and separated into herds and farms based on their ear marks. This method of keeping deer, as the most extensive, should not be used by reindeer herding farms.
Hygiene of pasture keeping of deer. Properly organized grazing of herds is a necessary prerequisite for qualitative improvement and increase in the productivity of reindeer husbandry, since such grazing increases the resistance of the reindeer body to various contagious and non-contagious diseases.
The effect of winter grazing on the health of reindeer. The winter grazing conditions for reindeer are of great importance for their health (Fig. 56). The main food of reindeer during this period is reindeer forage, which is poor in protein content, minerals and vitamins. Therefore, it is necessary to pay special attention to the choice of winter pastures, since maintaining better fatness of the reindeer by spring will not only reduce the number of diseases, but will also produce the best fatty meat, the best varieties of skins, and the best durable offspring. Going to the southern taiga pastures in winter, rich in frost-resistant grasses, even entails the recovery of deer.
The height and density of reindeer moss are great importance for feeding deer in winter. They eat only the growing upper parts of the moss, without touching the underlying, dying parts of it. If in winter grazing moss is below 3 cm and rare, then in winter with deep snow the reindeer will lose a lot of weight, since the animals will spend a lot of energy on obtaining food when excavating a large area.
Where it is not possible to have pastures with a sufficient amount of frost-resistant greens and plant leaves, it is necessary to feed the deer with brooms, table salt, chalk, hay, salted fish, and meat and bone meal during the winter.
Very important factor winter food is contaminated with sand and pine needles, which often leads to deer illness and even death.
The choice of pastures for calving is important. In the European part of the North, places rich in food are chosen on the southern slopes of the hills, with the presence of winding, steep terraces near river valleys, which allows sheltering the herd with calves from strong winds and snowstorms. The soil should be dry, covered with good turf, with good drainage. A born calf under these conditions is not exposed to hypothermia from the soil.
In the forest-tundra zone, the calving site is chosen near forest islands, which make it possible to shelter the herd in them in bad weather and in case of wind. Pay attention also to dry soil and good drainage.
In the southern mountainous regions of the eastern part of the North, the best pastures for calving are deciduous forests with dry soil and good drainage on the southern slopes of the mountains and with nearby pastures on which greenery appears early.
Caring for newborn calves. The greatest number of calves die from those born on inclement, rainy, windy and stormy days. However, the death of calves can be reduced to a minimum if on such days you shelter the herd in the forest between the mountains and carefully monitor each born calf. All calves born during the day are collected together with their mothers to the driest and most insulated areas of the pasture. It is known that newborn calves sleep a lot of time. Lying on damp ground and in the wind for a long time also causes colds. Therefore, the shepherd and the foreman are obliged to constantly monitor the bedding areas of born calves and not allow mothers to take them away from the designated dry, insulated area of ​​pasture.
Summer grazing of herds. The transition from calving grounds to summer grounds occurs from the middle or end of June (depending on the distance of the calving grounds from the summer pastures). When moving to the summer camp, grazing near the tander should be used for no more than four days near one camp. A long stay can cause massive infection of deer with dictyocaulosis larvae (pulmonary putrefactive disease).
When approaching the summer areas, the foreman must inspect the pasture before the herd arrives. In some years, cobwebs and worms appear on the deer's favorite pellets. In such cases, deer do not eat the foliage of bushes and starve.
In hot weather, you need to use the best pastures in the pre-dawn and evening hours, when insect life is sharply reduced due to cool air. These periods are short, and therefore the choice of tanners and places for installing smoke smokers should be linked to the presence of nearby pastures on which the deer would have time to get enough during short feeding periods.
In the northern regions of Yakutia and Chukotka, along the shores of large lakes on shallows and along sandy-silty bottoms, abundant growth of northern groundsel is often observed from the moment the water recedes. This plant is very readily eaten by deer. However, its young green mass, eaten in large quantities, causes tympania in animals with a fatal outcome, therefore, herds of deer should be allowed onto such pastures only for a short period of time in the summer, and it is best to use ragwort thickets in the fall. Emaciated, poorly nourished animals quickly become fat on these pastures.
Herding deer in summer is the most important task. All the attention of shepherds on farms should be directed to the correct choice of pastures and their correct use.
Selection of autumn pastures. September and October in all tundras are very favorable for reindeer grazing. Well-carried grazing of herds in summer helps to stop hoof diseases, pneumonia and other diseases and speeds up the onset of the rut. In the same month, chronic lung diseases worsen in the European North, as rainy, windy weather contributes to this. To prevent colds, herds must be driven into valleys protected from the wind.
Throughout September, you should strive to select pastures so that the deer find not only green food, but also reindeer moss.
In rainy autumn, large tracts of flat pastures with a significant number of lakes and an abundance of flat peat bogs should not be used for grazing, since in these conditions the soil becomes very damp. Deer are forced to lie down in damp places to chew food, which later often causes pneumonia in calves.
Watering hole for deer. Herds of deer often drink water from stagnant grass-covered sedge small mossy swamps, small puddles, from lakes with marshy banks, etc. Staying a herd near lakes with a viscous bottom is extremely dangerous.
When it’s hot at a watering hole, deer often go far into the water. If the lake's soil is viscous, when watering, the deer sink into the silt and sometimes die.
On clear days, disturbance of the herd by the gadfly begins at half past seven in the morning and continues until 5-6 o'clock in the evening. Deer, huddled together, run in the sun. The thunder (place of circling) is sometimes located at a considerable distance from the watering hole. On such days, deer do not go to watering places, as this increases the attack of insects on them.
Some reindeer herders set up a tander right on the shores of large lakes and flowing rivers, without interfering with the reindeer’s approach to watering, and this is correct. When a watering hole is close, deer approach the water more often. At the same time, drinking cool water takes away some of the heat from the overheated body.
Areas of pastures that do not have a watering place cannot be used for summer grazing, as deer in such areas get sick and run away. A similar phenomenon is observed in the fall, when rivers and lakes freeze before snow falls. In this case, to water the reindeer, the herding teams need to create ice holes in rivers and lakes along the route of grazing the herd.

The influence of external factors on the deer’s body. The climate of the tundra and near-tundra zone of the North is extremely diverse. In any season of the year there are sharp contrasting transitions from heat to cold and back. The temperature and humidity of the air, the strength of the wind, and the amount of precipitation change unusually sharply, not only depending on the geographic latitude (northern and southern parts of the tundra), but also on the topographical features of the pasture. These external factors have a huge impact on the deer’s body and often cause various diseases. In addition, the normal functioning of the body is strongly influenced by insects (horseflies, fly flies, gadflies, mosquitoes, midges), which greatly disturb the animals, resulting in disruption of nutrition, as well as thermoregulation, since deer, trying to escape from insects, produce a lot of heat.
To eliminate bad influence external factors, you need to know in what cases and how they affect the deer’s body.
The influence of sunlight and high temperatures. Sunlight has a very large and varied effect on animal health. Under the influence of light, the number of red cells in the blood increases. Metabolism in the body occurs more vigorously in light than in the dark. In the northernmost tundras in conditions more short summer and a shorter period of feeding on green food, the deer are smaller compared to the larger deer of the taiga zone. If you remove hair from the skin of a deer in April and May, you can see different skin colors in different animals: some are pale pink, others are slightly grayish. Large bare areas of deer skin in the summer sun will become covered with scabs; it is an inflammatory reaction caused by ultraviolet rays. When shearing animals at the end of June, when the deer get a lot of green grass, the skin becomes dark gray, does not become inflamed in the sun, but only becomes thicker.
Heat rays, unlike ultraviolet rays, penetrate deeply into the skin of animals. However, the temperature of the skin is usually always lower than the temperature of the muscles and internal organs, and thanks to this, heat is transferred from them to the skin and from it to the air. When skin temperature rises to air temperature, heat transfer from the body in weak winds worsens. On hot days and in the absence of insects, the deer’s body temperature reaches 39.5-40 ° C, the animal begins to breathe heavily in order to reduce its body temperature by evaporating water through the lungs. If you place a deer in the shade, after 10-15 minutes he will begin to breathe normally, and his body temperature will drop to normal.
Heat transfer by deer in dry and humid air in summer. The air contains different amounts of water vapor on different days. On calm, warm days after rains, the air is sometimes overly saturated with water vapor (in the words of reindeer herders, “parky summer”). Excessive saturation of the air with moisture makes it difficult for water to evaporate through the deer’s respiratory tract. On such days, the mucous membranes of the nasal cavities and trachea of ​​deer are greatly hyperemic, and the small blood vessels running through them are dilated. When attacked by insects, animals behave restlessly and lose weight. Hair shedding and horn growth stop after 8-10 days of such weather. There are many people with hoof sickness in the herds; this disease lasts a long time even after the heat ends.
With drier air in the summer heat and wind, it is easier for deer to adapt to the loss of water and heat from the body. The evaporation of excess water by the mucous membranes in dry air occurs unhindered, and no sharp disruption of heat regulation is observed in the deer’s body.
Deer tolerate the adverse effects of humid and dry air, as well as disturbance caused by insects, much more easily in the shade than in an open place. Therefore, for herds of deer, it is necessary to make shady shelters in the low-lying tundra; without this, it is impossible to achieve normal activity of the deer’s body, therefore, it is impossible to eliminate diseases that occur in the summer. Sheds protect herds from insects and from the heat rays of sunlight. Spraying with solutions of DDT and hexochlorane, the use of shady shelters and smoke smokers make the situation easier for the reindeer herds. You cannot leave deer in a drought zone. It is necessary to take them to large, never-drying rivers.
Effect of low temperature. Animals tolerate low air temperatures much easier than high ones. For example, with good feeding and free movement, deer tolerate frosts down to -62°C well.
With a sharp drop in temperature environment In deer, all body functions are aimed at increasing heat production and reducing heat transfer. This is achieved by narrowing the skin blood vessels, involuntary muscle contractions, deeper breathing, increased oxidative processes in the body and increased overall metabolism. Well-fed, healthy deer with abundantly developed layers subcutaneous fat and a normally developed coat, tolerate cold better than exhausted and sick ones.
Low temperature air at strong wind affects the deer to a greater extent than in calm weather. For example, frost of 30 degrees in the absence of wind is tolerated by animals much better than frost of 10 degrees with strong wind.
The influence of dust on the incidence of deer diseases. In the tundra there are pastures with little turf, with sparse vegetation, and in some places with a complete absence of it. This happens most often on sandy soils exposed to wind, as well as on dry peat pastures. Herds of deer willingly stop at such sandy places during the attack of the nasal botfly. At the slightest wind and when deer run away from insects, sand rises into the air and enters the animal’s respiratory tract. Besides, in dry summer a lot of dust settles on the sedges in the form of a rusty-brown coating. Dust particles, once on the mucous membranes of the respiratory tract, cause inflammation, which contributes to the penetration of infection into the deer’s lungs (bronchitis develops). Subsequently, deer develop severe lung diseases. Therefore, it is necessary to avoid dusty pastures in every possible way in the summer and under no circumstances arrange a thunderstorm on them.
The influence of insects. On pastures, both tundra, intermountain, and forest, there are always a lot of mosquitoes on warm days in summer. Their years begin at air temperatures of 6°C and above. As temperatures and humidity rise, mosquitoes become more of a concern to the herd. Deer suffer especially badly from mosquitoes during the period of rapid molting, when the skin of the body is covered with short hair. During the period of mass appearance of mosquitoes, a deer loses approximately 125 g of blood daily. The deer must replenish this amount of blood through good nutrition, but mosquitoes do not allow the animal to graze peacefully. Therefore, there are sometimes cases of death of deer from severe anemia caused by blood loss from mosquitoes. To combat mosquitoes, Nabakov's checkers and smokers are successfully used.

Midges usually appear in the last ten days of July, and their flight sometimes lasts until September. These weak flyers cannot withstand strong winds (from 4 m/s), but on days with less weak winds and calm days they greatly disturb the herd. Midges get into the groins, on the eyelids, on the ends of the horns, on the anus and in other places. When bitten near the eye, the mucous membrane becomes inflamed, swells, and lacrimation begins.
Industrial and domestic buildings in reindeer husbandry. The buildings currently used in reindeer herding, depending on their purpose, can be divided into three groups. The first group includes fences, shady canopies, stationary and portable corrals; to the second - slaughterhouses, warehouses, devices for primary processing products, glaciers; to the third - light portable dwellings: tents, shelters and tents.
Fences for grazing deer. The size of the fence for grazing deer depends on the reindeer capacity of the pastures, the size of the herd and the configuration of the fenced area. In reindeer husbandry, the following stationary types of fences are used: wire, perch and simple gorodba. The height of any type of fence is 1.4-1.5 m. The pillars are dug to a depth of 0.5-10.6 m. To extend the service life, the pillars and poles must be sanded.
Stationary and portable corrals. A stationary corral is a structure of a round shape or the shape of an elongated drop. It consists of a general and preliminary working chamber pen, additional compartments, internal and external openings.
The general enclosure of the corral should be sufficiently spacious. Its area is determined at the rate of 1.5-2 m2 per head. The preliminary pen should be built in a barrel shape. Its maximum width is 10-12 m, length - 25-30 m. The working chamber has the shape of a 5-6-sided shape with a diameter of 5-6 m.
Portable corrals have significant advantages compared to stationary ones. They allow veterinary treatment of reindeer directly in the herd’s grazing areas, which saves reindeer herders from driving reindeer over long distances and eliminates the possibility of trampling coastal pastures, which almost always happens when working in a stationary corral. There are several types of portable corrals (rope, fabric and nylon).
Camera for weighing deer. It contains hundred scales, a shield attached to the scale platform, and a brake that secures the shield in the non-working position. The chamber is made of poles or light boards. It is installed above the weighing platform. The camera rests on four stands and is not connected to the scales. It has entrance and exit doors and two sliding side walls 2 m high. The weighing chamber is connected to the working chamber of the corral by a pre-weighing platform. The throughput capacity of the chamber is 7080 birds per hour.
Shady and protective canopies. To shelter deer from the scorching rays of the sun and protect them from insect attacks, shade canopies are used. For each herd on summer pastures, depending on their quality, it is necessary to have 3-4 sheds. Its area is determined at the rate of 1 m2 per deer.
Intermediate bases. The construction of bases is carried out in large reindeer herding farms with the expectation of servicing several shepherding teams in the summer-autumn period of the year. They should have residential buildings of simple design, a first-aid post, a bakery, a trading stall, a transceiver radio station, storerooms, and an icehouse. At intermediate bases, reindeer herders are supplied with food and manufactured goods and receive medical care and communicate with the administrative center of the farm. For small farms, it is advisable to create inter-collective farm intermediate bases.
Slaughterhouses. To avoid loss and damage to slaughter products, special slaughter stations are built on reindeer herding farms - permanent and mobile.
Stationary slaughterhouses that process 500-600 deer carcasses per day can serve several reindeer herding farms, i.e., perform the functions of inter-collective farm or inter-district slaughterhouses. To serve one farm, small stationary slaughterhouses with a capacity of 150-200 animals per shift are built.
Due to the specific conditions of reindeer husbandry, slaughterhouses operate only 15-20 days a year. The rest of the time they are either not used at all or serve as storage facilities. Therefore, it is not profitable to equip slaughterhouses with expensive equipment. When slaughtering, it is necessary to have a corral, icehouse or freezer for storing meat and a freezer. To maintain a slaughterhouse with a capacity of 500,600 deer per day, 40-45 people are required, including 25 for main jobs and 15-20 for auxiliary jobs.
Mobile slaughterhouses make it possible to slaughter deer where it is convenient and beneficial for the farm, preserving pastures from trampling.
Portable dwellings. The main type of portable dwelling for the nomadic population of the North is the tent. Currently, there are three types of tents of improved designs: wooden with metal attachment points, all-metal, all-wood.
Bolki are small mobile houses mounted on sleds. The wooden frame of the bolk is covered with printed calico (bottom layer), deer skins and canvas. Dimensions of an average barrel: length - 3.5-4 m, width - 1.5-1.7 m, height - 1.6-1.8 m. It has a door and two windows. Volok is a winter dwelling. It is widespread among reindeer herders, fishermen and hunters of the Taimyr National Okrug. Here bolok has firmly entered into the life of the local population.
Tents as temporary portable housing for shepherds and specialists involved in reindeer herding are widespread. Two people set up a tent in 5 minutes.
Products. Big practical significance in the economy of reindeer husbandry they have antlers, blood, milk, processed meat (up to 130 kg per deer). In addition to antler products, various types of by-products can be obtained from deer. Of these, reindeer blood is of great interest. Animal blood is a cheap source of natural raw materials for the production of medical and veterinary drugs. When creating donor groups of deer, it is possible to produce various blood preparations year-round, in particular “RANGEM”. It can also be used as a protein-mineral supplement for caged fur-bearing animals. And during industrial processing, blood meal, light and dark albumin are obtained from it. One of the unique and valuable products Reindeer husbandry is milk. Reindeer milk can be used as a medicinal nutritional mixture, as an additive to baby food, and as a base for cosmetics. All of the above will really increase the profitability of reindeer herding farms, thereby increasing the interest of reindeer herders in the development of industry specialization in antler, meat, and dairy areas.