Is it possible to feed moose black bread? Regional state budgetary institution "State Nature Reserve" Sumarokovsky. Previously about the domestication and breeding of moose in Russia


Twenty kilometers from Kostroma there is a unique elk farm. This place has long become a must-see Kostroma attraction. What’s also interesting is that moose are bred there just, out of love for nature. And not like on the ostrich farm near Serpukhov - for meat and eggs.


So, moose (in case anyone doesn’t know) is a cloven-hoofed mammal, the largest species of the deer family.


The male's body length is up to 3 m, height at the withers is up to 2.3 m, tail length is 12-13 cm; weight 360-600 kg. Females are smaller. In appearance, the elk is noticeably different from other deer. His body and neck are short, his withers are high, in the form of a hump. The legs are very elongated, so in order to drink, the elk is forced to go deep into the water or kneel on its front legs. The head is large, hook-nosed, with an overhanging fleshy upper lip. Under the throat there is a soft leathery outgrowth (“earring”), reaching 25-40 cm. The wool is coarse, brownish-black; legs light gray, almost white.


Moose feed on trees, shrubs and herbaceous vegetation, as well as mosses, lichens and fungi. In summer they eat leaves, reaching them from a considerable height thanks to their growth; feed on aquatic and semi-aquatic plants (watch, marigold, egg capsules, water lilies, horsetails), as well as tall grasses in burnt areas and cutting areas - fireweed, sorrel. At the end of summer, they look for cap mushrooms, branches of blueberries and lingonberries with berries. From September they begin to bite off shoots and branches of trees and shrubs and by November they almost completely switch to twig food. The main winter food for moose includes willow, pine (fir in North America), aspen, rowan, birch, raspberry, and buckthorn; in the thaw they gnaw the bark. During the day, an adult moose eats: about 35 kg of food in summer, and 12-15 kg in winter; per year - about 7 tons. In large numbers, moose damage forest nurseries and plantings. Elks visit salt licks almost everywhere; In winter they even lick salt off highways.


Moose run fast, up to 56 km/h; swim well. While looking for aquatic plants, they can keep their heads under water for more than a minute. They defend themselves from predators by striking their front legs. Of the sense organs, the moose has the best developed hearing and smell; his vision is weak - he cannot see a motionless person at a distance of several tens of meters.


An elk very rarely attacks a person first. Usually an attack occurs when irritating factors or approaching moose calves.


Many times they tried to domesticate moose, milk them like cows and ride them like horses. But unlike deer, these creatures are capricious and cannot be fully trained.


Therefore, on the Sumarokovo farm they are bred only to increase the number of these animals in nature. Elks are not slaughtered for meat - I feel sorry for the animals.


In general, moose calves are very similar to kangaroos. See for yourself!

Moose feed mainly on tree and shrub vegetation. In the summer, they readily eat leaves and very few herbaceous plants (willowherb, nettle, meadowsweet), eat wetland plants, and are especially fond of three-leafed grass. However, even in summer, with an abundance of leaves, grass and wetland vegetation, the basis of elk nutrition is twig food. In the complex stomach of moose, only it creates the necessary regime in which the digestion process proceeds normally.

They didn’t know about this for a long time, and this is the only reason why moose did not survive in many zoos around the world. They were fed hay and all kinds of concentrates, but they were not given branch food.

In the last decade, due to the massive spread of moose in the central and even some southern regions of our country, where agricultural production is developed, cases of these ungulates eating winter cereals, corn, sunflowers, and melons are increasingly being recorded. Moose have even learned to dig up potatoes.

Moose eat almost all types of tree and shrub vegetation, however, preferring soft species (willow, aspen, field ash, fir, pine forests). Moose are reluctant to eat spruce. If it is noticed that moose eat branches or bark of this breed, then this indicates difficulties in nutrition, a clear lack of preferred food.

In different seasons of the year, the “tastes” of moose change somewhat, but they always depend on the availability, abundance and accessibility of certain foods. The amount of food eaten daily depends on the seasons of the year.

In the first year of life, young moose calves eat an average of 2.5 kg of plant food daily in summer, 5 in autumn, 7.5 in winter and 6 in spring. Moose in their second year of life require significantly more feed, respectively: 15, 12, 1 and 8 kg. An adult moose eats somewhat more, especially in summer: 35; 20; 13 and 10 kg. In summer, some adult moose were found to have 50 kg of crushed food in their stomachs. By spring, the amount of food consumed by moose per day decreases to a minimum.

An adult elk eats 7 - 8 tons of plant food during the year, of which about 60% is twig food, 15 - 20% of the diet consists of leaves of trees and shrubs, bark - no more than 5%, herbaceous plants, including wetlands - about 10 - 12%, shrubs (blueberries, lingonberries, etc.) - up to 5%, during the period of abundance - 1 - 2% - mushrooms. Several percent of the annual diet falls on food that is unusual for animals: agricultural crops, berries, fruits, etc. These indicators, naturally, are averaged and in different parts of the vast range, moose may eat somewhat differently.

Moose need a lot of food. And if this beast led a herd lifestyle, it would very soon devastate all the forest pastures. While feeding, the elk is constantly on the move, moving from tree to tree, from bush to bush, biting off a small number of shoots from each tree or bush. The basic principle of its feeding behavior comes down to using the maximum amount of pasture with a minimum load on each of them. This made the moose a wanderer, leading a predominantly solitary lifestyle.

During the deep-snow period of the year, moose always adhere to those types of land where there are maximum reserves of branch food per unit area under good protective conditions. Moose flock to such areas for the winter from all over the area. Winter pastures in such areas are represented by pine undergrowth, willow forests, aspen forests, birch forests, and fieldfare, growing in burnt areas, clearings, or in river valleys.

Here is another very interesting feature of the winter behavior of moose. Usually, when the air temperature is not lower than - 20 ° C, moose are found in open areas of pastures: in burnt areas, clearings, in small forests in floodplain willows. Grinded branches of willow, aspen, rowan, and birch were found in the stomachs of moose. The admixture of coniferous trees and shrubs constituted a small part of the total food volume. With frosts down to -20°C and especially lower, and even with a moderate wind, the picture changes dramatically: moose leave open areas and go deeper into continuous forests, mainly spruce and spruce-fir. At the same time, the composition of their food changes noticeably. In the stomachs of moose at very low air temperatures, the main volume of food consisted of fir branches and needles, less often pine, juniper, and very rarely ate.

With the onset of the next warming, moose again enter sparse and open forest areas, where, other things being equal, there is always more food, and their daily diet includes more and more branch food from deciduous trees and shrubs.

Here are some numbers to confirm what has been said. In severe frosts, the percentage of branches and needles of fir, spruce and juniper in the total food mass of moose is 85, 15 and 8%, in warming periods - 22, 0 and 0%, respectively. In severe frosts, the percentage of shoots of aspen, willow, rowan and birch is 15, 8, 23 and 23%, and in warming periods these figures increase sharply: 67, 56, 45 and 45%.

It must be borne in mind that the presence of food consisting of coniferous trees and shrubs in the contents of the stomach is approximately the same both during severe frosts and in milder weather. The difference, as a rule, is expressed only in the volume of its components. During severe frosts, the percentage of food consisting of fir in the contents of the stomachs of moose increases, and the percentage of food from deciduous trees and shrubs sharply decreases. During periodic warmings, the opposite is true: the amount of coniferous food decreases and the percentage of deciduous food increases.

In frosty weather, moose never feed on tree bark. This is explained by the fact that moose cannot catch frozen tree bark with their incisors. During thaws, which are quite often observed in winter in the middle and southern parts of the moose range, the picture changes; animals willingly scrape the bark of young trees of almost all species, deciduous and coniferous, with the exception of birch. Moose especially often feed on tree bark in the spring, when it thaws well in the sun.

High fishing pressures everywhere and the ever-increasing influence of the so-called disturbance factor lead to significant shifts in the normal distribution of moose in certain areas. Long fishing periods, tourists, mushroom pickers, berry pickers and fishermen penetrating everywhere constantly disturb moose, forcing them to create increased population densities in certain areas and excessive pressure on pastures. In many forest districts of the central regions of the European part of the country, moose began to cause significant damage to forest plantations and natural reforestation. To reduce the damage caused by moose to reforestation, various measures were used: they fenced off forest plantations, coated the branches of trees and shrubs with various repellent, foul-smelling agents, wrapped especially valuable apical shoots with wire or plastic spirals, etc. However, positive results were achieved only in limited areas. Most of the winter elk pastures, in areas with high concentrations of animals, were still subject to devastating loads.

What to do, where to look for the key to the correct solution to the problem? Modern hunting science makes it possible to correctly solve the problem at hand, offering a reliable key for this. This key is artificial regulation of the number of moose in the areas.

But how can we determine whether we are really dealing with an excess number of moose? In such a complex issue, you can’t rely on subjective assessments, can you? Objective quantitative criteria are needed. If they are still being developed to assess the natural and actual capacity of winter pastures, then to identify the state of the population of the animals being studied (depressed or prosperous), such criteria already exist. These are reproduction rates, composition by sex and age. If these biological parameters are analyzed on a sufficient sample, then there will be no doubt about what to do.

Y. P. Yazan. ELK. HUNTING FOR UNGULATES.-Publishing house "Forest Industry", 1976

A newborn elk calf was found in the forest near Mezhdurechensk. Most likely, the moose cow was frightened by the presence of people and ran away, but then she would definitely return to her cub, there was simply no need to take him away. But what's done is done. The little elk was sheltered by kind people. As soon as they received the calf, they called the national park to find out how to care for it. They voluntarily agreed to feed the elk calf, since they have a recently calved cow. Today the calf is 15 days old, it is a female, and she feels relatively well. Such a baby, of course, is not afraid of people and is very attached to them, constantly pokes her muzzle into everything that comes under her nose and tries to suck on a shirt, dress, hand - looking for her mother.

The management of the national park decided to take the elk calf somewhere in early June, as soon as it gets a little stronger and is able to consume plant foods in addition to milk. Unfortunately, the elk calf cannot be picked up earlier because it is very small and needs to grow at least a little. Moreover, the cub is already accustomed to the milk of a certain cow, changing food can only do harm. Now, in the enclosure complex near the Aibolit House, space is being allocated for a small pen where the elk calf can roam free. But, in general, such a large animal as the moose is very difficult to raise in captivity. We hope that everything will be fine with our calf, although it is unlikely that we will be able to release him into freedom in the future.

I would like to remind people visiting the forest not to take away supposedly “abandoned” cubs from nature. By removing a living object from its usual habitat, we ourselves create new tragedies and often doom the animal to long suffering in captivity.


News about the Hunt

05/15/2012 | The thousandth calf of Sumarokovo and other news about moose (VIDEO)

Elk calves drink milk from a nipple and run races with children

The thousandth calf was born at the Sumarokovskaya moose farm in the Kostroma region. The weight of babies at birth is from five to 18 kilograms. Boys wear red collars, girls wear yellow ones.

“The name of the calf is given to the first letter of the mother’s name. We don’t have fathers, we are completely fatherless, we leave only females in the pens, we release males into the wild,” said the chief technologist of the moose farm, Dmitry Kudryashov.

First, farm employees feed the moose calves with expressed milk from a teat. They provide clay from which animals extract the necessary minerals. Then the elk begin to taste fresh leaves and grass. When babies turn one month old, they are switched to fortified milk formula.

The farm currently houses about forty animals. In order for workers to be able to find moose at any time and control their movements, a radio beacon hangs on everyone’s neck and periodically transmits signals. Thanks to special equipment, specialists can determine where each of their pets is at any time.

A calf was caught in the center of Ufa


A one-year-old wild elk, discovered this morning in the area of ​​Sovetskaya Square in Ufa, was jointly caught by environmentalists and specialists from the municipal unitary enterprise "Spetsavtohozyaystvo" and promised to be released into its natural habitat - the forest.

As the RG correspondent was told by the press service of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Republic, information about the appearance of an animal in the center of the Bashkir capital was received by the operational dispatch service of the Ministry of Ecology of the Republic of Belarus from the duty department of the city's Civil Protection Department at 6:21 a.m.

Specialists from the Department for the Protection of Wildlife Objects of the Ministry of Ecology of the Republic of Belarus, together with the City Veterinary Department and the municipal unitary enterprise "Special vehicle fleet for city cleaning" promptly arrived at the scene of the incident. With the help of medicines, the animal was prepared for transportation outside the city. As soon as the animal comes to its senses after this procedure, it will be taken to the forest and released into the wild.

As explained by specialists from the Department for the Protection of Wildlife Objects of the Ministry of Ecology of the Republic of Belarus, in May and June, when moose babies are born, last year’s babies are left without parental supervision. At this time, one-year-old moose calves often appear in populated areas of the republic, including on highways, which leads to traffic accidents.

Environmentalists, taking this opportunity, once again called on drivers to be attentive and careful, especially in spring and summer.

In the Pinsk region, a family sheltered three moose calves


Because the babies were abandoned by a moose, animal welfare inspectors allowed the wild animals to be taken home

More than a week has passed since the Stepin family from the village of Zavidchitsy, Pinsk region, sheltered three newborn moose calves.

The husband works in the forest, extracting resin (resin, which is used for industrial purposes. - Ed.). And in the morning on his site he saw moose calves. They were completely weak,” Lyubov Stepina, a resident of the village of Zavidchitsy in the Pinsk region, told Komsomolskaya Pravda. - My husband had water with him, and he gave the kids something to drink. Then, in search of the moose cow, he walked around the area and even went to the swamp, but he never found the mother of the moose calf. The elk calves followed their husband through the forest until two o'clock in the afternoon, until his shift ended.

Nikolai Egorovich was so imbued with feelings for the moose calves that he could no longer leave them alone. Moreover, the moose cow never appeared. Then the man and his son transported the moose calves in the passenger compartment of a car to the forestry. But at the insistence of the forester, the kids had to be returned to the forest.

True, Nikolai Egorovich did not leave the moose calves unattended and came several times with his wife to feed them.

We bought milk, warmed it, took a bottle with a nipple and fed the babies that way. And the next day, Sunday, in the evening, they took them to their home. The fact is that for two days there were no traces that the mother came to the elk calves,” said Lyubov Sergeevna. “On the same day, the chief livestock specialist came to us and told us how to feed moose calves, and also suggested that we take cow’s milk from the collective farm, since we don’t have our own cow.

By the way, all the moose calves turned out to be females. The Styopas kept two of them for themselves, and the neighbor took care of the little one.

The elk calves are already strong. We give them milk five times a day, and they drink 1.5 liters at a time between the two of them,” explained Lyubov Stepina. - Children come running to us every day to play with them and take pictures.

Meanwhile: Can the new “parents” of moose calves be held accountable?

Within a week, the story with the moose calves spread throughout the area, and even information appeared that the compassionate Stepins could be held accountable for illegally taking animals from the wild. However, the Pinsk Interdistrict Inspectorate for the Protection of Fauna and Plants assured Komsomolskaya Pravda that the family would not receive any fine.

We went to the place where we found the moose calves and found out that the moose cow really had not appeared. It is difficult to explain what could have happened to her. And the fact that people took them for themselves and are caring for them is very good,” Sergei Chizhevsky, deputy head of the Pinsk Interdistrict Inspectorate for the Protection of Fauna and Plants, told KP. - Now negotiations are underway that when the moose calves get stronger, they will be transported to Belovezhskaya Pushcha.

By the way

It turns out that there is nothing surprising in the fact that the female moose gave birth to many children.

There is a lower and upper limit to how many moose calves should be born, but usually between one and three babies. This depends on the age of the moose: a young moose usually gives birth to one, and an adult moose can give birth to three,” Alexander Kisleyko, a game warden at Belovezhskaya Pushcha, explained to Komsomolskaya Pravda.

- How do you explain the fact that the moose abandoned the babies?

As far as I know, deforestation is taking place there. Therefore, the anxiety factor could have played a role. There are a number of other reasons. For example, wolves could kill a moose cow. In veterinary medicine, there are cases when a female’s placenta does not come out after the birth of offspring, and she dies from an inflammatory process.


These moose calves have not yet come up with names, but the third baby, whom the Stepins’ neighbor took care of, was named Lyusya

Attention! Moose on the roads of the Tver region!

Quite recently, a moose came out onto the Proletarka platform in Tver; on the same days, moose were seen on Tsanova Boulevard and in Yuzhny. And tonight the elk made traffic on the M-10 Rossiya highway within the regional center very difficult.

As region69.info reports, shortly after midnight, in the area of ​​the Volokolamsk interchange, a car collided with a moose running out onto the road. Fortunately, no people were injured. But the animal died and partially blocked the roadway with its carcass for quite a long time.

As commentators on this message report, the elk had been “walking” in that area for quite some time—truck drivers even warned about its appearance on the radio. “Since a moose entering the road poses a very real threat, there are many cases where collisions between a car and a moose resulted in human casualties.

In Ivanovo, on the Rabochy settlement, we caught elk all day

On May 11, at seven o’clock in the morning, a moose was spotted on the territory of a trading base in the Rabochy settlement. The elk inexplicably climbed over the high fence and tried to get back out in a panic.

Deputy Director of Ivprirokhrana Sergei Fedyaev is sure that the appearance of young moose within the city is a normal occurrence for May:

Every spring, during the calving period, moose cows drive away their one-year-old children. Those, finding themselves alone with nature, wander alone and wander into cities. The outskirts of Ivanovo are poorly lit, so elk in the city is not surprising. And that elk calf turned out to be a healthy one-year-old female.

When specialists from the regional wildlife protection service arrived at the base, local workers had already driven the frightened animal into the building.

We arrived at four o’clock in the afternoon, the elk calf was sitting in a car service in an inspection hole,” recalls Sergei Kislitsyn, the senior shift officer of the Ivanovo rescue squad. “The specialist gave an injection, immobilizing the 60-kilogram elk calf, and we loaded it into the trailer.

The elk was taken to the Ivanovo district and left in the shade under a Christmas tree. Conscious but motionless, the moose had to rise to her feet on her own.

She didn’t succeed for a long time, we helped her, she tried to kick us,” Sergei Fedyaev laughs. - On the seventh attempt, the moose cow walked into the forest with a drunken gait. We followed her for three hundred meters, and the next day we returned and were convinced: the elk had returned to its natural environment.

 

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