Description: War Thunder is a next generation military MMO game dedicated to...
Ekaterina Bobretsova
Tasks:
1. Introduce children to the profession reindeer breeder, a plague worker, reindeer herder.
2. To cultivate a respectful attitude towards the indigenous people, a sense of pride, love for the small Motherland.
3. Show value deer in the life of northern peoples.
vocabulary work: Nenets, roam, reindeer herding, reindeer moss, chum, camp, reindeer herder, pasture, deer, plague worker, sledges, malitsa, ornament)
Lesson progress:
Every day, always, everywhere.
On the lessons in the game,
We speak boldly
And we sit quietly.
Guys, please tell me the name of our small homeland, the district in which we live (N.A.O.)
What kind of people nationalities we live?
Name the indigenous people a N.A.O?
caregiver: Yes, the Nenets are indigenous people. They have lived here for a long time. These are very brave and strong, hardworking people. They lead a nomadic lifestyle, often move, roam, from one place to another, in search of pastures (food for their deer, guard the herd, teach reindeer for the team. In addition, their duties include the manufacture and repair of teams, sleds, skis, nets, hunting equipment. Men also hunt and fish. Usually, reindeer herders It is customary to wake up at sunrise, at about 5 o'clock in the morning.
What is the name of the profession of the Nenets who graze deer(reindeer herders)
What do you think they do reindeer herders?
Their main occupation - reindeer herding. Repeat the word. (children in chorus and individually repeat the word) This is the economy of the Nenets.
What do they eat deer? (reindeer moss)
will eat reindeer feed-moss reindeer moss, go further, and behind them reindeer herders. The place where they live reindeer herders is called a camp. (the story is accompanied by illustrations)
Do 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? (the chum is made from deer skins) Chum can be quickly disassembled and transported to another place)
Guys, who do you think is looking after deer when they graze in the pasture? (reindeer herders)
caregiver: reindeer herds most of the time to be under supervision reindeer herders, who go around the herd on light teams, making sure that the animals do not lag behind and, as necessary, drive it to new pastures. The main tool of labor the herder is a lasso(illustration is shown, and the husky dog is an assistant. Owners value a good dog. They teach her to drive her into a herd of stray 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 guard, big or small?
caregiver: In fact, it is easier to guard a large herd, since in this case deer the feeling of herd develops more strongly, they scatter less. Shepherds and dogs must carefully guard the flock, as deer enough enemies.
Why do shepherds do this?
caregiver:To deer didn't stay away, and move the herd as needed to new pastures. The duties of the shepherds also include the protection of the herd 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, all their lives the indigenous people live with deer. Deer is an animal, which feeds and clothes the indigenous population. deer running in deep snow where it is impossible to drive a car. Guys, as you already know, the North is very harsh winter, but these people are not afraid of any frost.
Why do you think?
Guys, what are the names of clothes and shoes reindeer herders?
(display national clothes)
What is it made of (children's answers)
caregiver: Yes, this is fur clothing, but it is not called a fur coat, but a malitsa. Malitsa is sewn from deerskin fur inside, Women decorate it with ornamental patterns. Shoes on the feet too deer fur. Please note that all clothes and shoes are handmade by women. You can't buy these clothes in stores.
What is the name of the women who follow the plague? (plague workers)
(children's answers)
caregiver: The woman is the keeper of the hearth, the holder of the sacred fire and smoke. 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 do not lag behind. (sled)
What are sledges (children's answers)
This is a sleigh that is harnessed deer. (sled show)
Invite the children to draw a chum. (exhibition of drawings)
Summarizing:
If you want to see firsthand
What does human labor do?
Come to us at noon and at night,
Look how the Nenets live here.
Not according to a fairy tale, but slowly, difficultly,
Having given free rein to the winds and snows,
Gloomy tundra conquers
Human miracle hands.
(V. Ledkov)
The stormy theme of autumn grew: among the greenery and yellowness of the tundra, red spots appeared. But the deer have not yet appeared. For the whole of August, only three single males passed by us, the first two had velvet horns, the last one was covered with blood. The velvet had come off them, and only a two-foot flap hung from the highest end, like a veil hanging from a medieval hairstyle. Will the main flow of autumn migration pass through these places, as it did last year? It seemed unlikely: the previous rotation now began far up Easter Creek.
The cubs put on their autumn coats. The black guard hair, six inches long, began to cover the thick cream fur and the young undercoat. The wolf cubs became adult wolves.
The colors of the tundra became juicier day by day. The greenery is gone. In the long polar twilight, the red color thickened and shimmered so warmly below, among the yellow spots under our mountain, that the eye was involuntarily drawn to it, as to a light. On the long terraces across the river, the tundra was tawny with a red backing, like a warm living body under dull fur. And yet the colors continued to thicken. At dusk, the very air seemed to be saturated with color. The terraces towered one above the other with wide crimson steps, and over them looked menacingly Mountain peaks, gray from the snow, through which the blackness of the stone was visible; now they looked much more intimidating than later, when they turned completely white.
I don't know if it was Andy's last visit before the freeze-up, or if the autumn itself made us depressed. That evening we looked through the mail. Rain drummed on the roof, and a lantern hissed brightly at the head of the bed.
We were especially upset by the article about the view film received by mail, 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.
That was the hour of sober verification of our whole life.
I did not live up to your expectations, - I said, childishly asking for consolation.
Chris smiled and hugged me.
I have achieved something that I could not even dream of. I climbed up here to Brooks Ridge. I live not in a tent, but in a house! I have a stove, stove, peaches, grapes, tomatoes, meat!
For the next few days, I was moping. It was only a yearning for female society, although I did not realize this to myself. The last time I saw the woman was many months ago. On my mother's birthday, the feeling of longing reached its limit. A trifling incident from my life, which seemed to have been forgotten forever, 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 a farm. In the morning, after we had breakfast alone in the dining room, my mother went to the friendly hosts in the large tidy kitchen to pour herself some more coffee. All of her - hair, face, eyes - was as if woven from the sun. For busy women, it was a moment of ease and fun - calm affability entered the very thick of business. The moment when hands meeting in a shake, human kindness inspire unexpected self-confidence. A moment infinitely far from the moment when a person says: "Ah, I never thought that I would have to die like this."
Along with this memory came another, as if from a deep forest thicket - for the memories of a person who never strays as far from an animal as we are inclined to suppose - the death cry of some small animal in the night: “I don’t want to die!"
That evening I went out into the open sky and stood alone behind the barracks for a long time.
It was quiet. From the river came a faint noise, drowned in the storms and disturbances of August and the first half of September. A huge, a quarter of a snow-covered mountain range up Easter Creek, the moon rose from behind the mountains, illuminating the sky with blue light. Under my feet, the sloping roof of the barracks brightened, the same color as the tundra. Below, at the foot of the mountain, darkness reigned.
It was cold—probably very cold. But nature seemed to reappear to the eye - that same "nature" that is so easy to love in the temperate zone and which was forgotten, which was not remembered here. Everything seemed somehow benevolent, sweet, delightful, as if filled with some kind of responsiveness: then the “Arctic euphoria” began.
The next morning the colors disappeared. The mountains and tundra were that incredible grey-brown color that you see them when they emerge from under the snow.
The weather was wonderful - sunny and calm. Sludge floated along the river, hardening with ice near the banks. The cubs were fascinated by the thin icy border that grew along the edges of the puddles. They stepped on it, fell through, beat it with their paws, carried away pieces of ice in their teeth.
The night of September 19 was so cold that I went to brush my teeth in the barracks, although I felt in my gut that there should be an “illumination” today. When I ran out to the call of Chris, my breath caught.
The lights of the Northern Lights hung over your very head and filled the entire sky ... Soft whiteness, stretching from east to west with an immensely wide belt, and stars shine through it. Bright spots of light in the north and east, originating in some invisible glow beyond the mountains. What lifeliness! What liveliness and mobility in the very structure!
The stormy theme of autumn grew, and just like that, the trumpet sounds of migration rang out at its top.
The morning after the northern lights it was fourteen degrees above zero.
Chris took out our sleeping bags to air out. A little bit of sun, a haze of clouds, a wind from the northwest. I started making breakfast.
Lois! he called.
I ran out to him.
Bind Tutch.
As I approached the dog, I looked west from the edge of the mountain. There were deer there.
They walked in a migratory step from the northwest to the southeast, heading over the ridge to their winter quarters. They moved in a discontinuous column, as usual during the 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, I on the other, sheltering behind a hill from the approaching animals. The cubs clung to my legs, whimpering softly from nervous tension.
Over the hill came the clatter of hooves on the frozen grass, a deep, piercingly calm “ma!” deer - a pleasant sound, as part of the wind itself and the tundra. Behind the hill moved living, soft as suede, beautiful gray bodies, each a world in itself, each with a fur coat slightly different from the others.
An agile fawn, galloping after its queen, suddenly dived under it to feed. Two males had dazzling white horns; they were covered with ice, apparently after they had dipped them into the water. The rest of the deer, including the females, had blood-red antlers. Some had flaps of velvet fluttering on their horns, and the wind carried them forward; the deer walked with the wind, not smelling any danger - neither the smell of wolves, nor the smell of man.
Frightened wolf cubs huddled up to me, crawled into the bushes. In the interval between the columns, Alatna, seeing a lone female with a cub, was chasing after them, but quickly returned back: a herd of adult males was approaching. Rosette blades hung over their muzzles like huge brown leaves, their chests were covered with thick white hair.
An hour has passed. Anxiety began to take hold of me: the cubs were bored, and if they run away, who knows if they will return home; they have never gone out into the tundra alone. In the end, they really ran away - to their favorite place to play on the sandbanks.
Hour after hour the deer came and went off into the distance, to the snow-covered mountains. There were cripples among them. A male, moving like a rocking horse, accompanied by a small herd of devoted females; seeing us, he stopped in fright, but then continued on his way. A deer with a protruding shoulder blade, either broken or dislocated. A female dragging her unbending leg behind her. Another crippled female, making her way alone in the gap between the columns.
We were not in the main stream of migration, but only on one of its largest offshoots. Individuals and animals that have strayed from the herd will walk here for several more days, gradually decreasing in number. At four o'clock in the afternoon the main flow of migration dried up. Chris began to gather his photographic gear.
I went 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 a momentary consolation: like me, he was eager to find the other wolf cubs.
As I climbed to the top, I howled. The cubs answered, and from the side where it would never have occurred to us to look for them. They were sitting on the tawny mountain range to the north of us, barely visible in the tawny bushes, and they didn't want to go home. Then Chris arrived in time, and we began to howl in a duet, persuading them to return. The cubs persisted: the last few hours in the tundra, in their opinion, something was wrong, and they were uncomfortable. Even during the passage of deer, I heard an alarming, lost howl, apparently Mr. Barrow. For normal health, the wolf needs everything around to be as it should be. He recoils even from new shoelaces that violate the set of features that make up the concept of "friend."
In the end, I went to "persuade" the cubs with pieces of meat, and they followed me. At the same time, I monotonously hummed the call that ended our daytime walks: "Now let's go home, eat meat."
This day was permeated with the moods of many living beings, including our pity for the sick and crippled, dragging with difficulty across the tundra. More than once a day I wished Chris had a gun and helped some cripple die. But Andy took the gun from us a long time ago, planning to hunt moose.
The next morning it was ten degrees above zero. A gray swell was walking along the lake, but in the middle and on one edge it was even and transparent-dark. It was ice. The reindeer came with the freeze, the partridges will arrive with the first snow.
"Slow" male deer, "rocking horses", "tired" deer - they all trailed at the tail of the migration. A graceful, horned gray female walked alone with a “tired” fawn. She ran forward, obliquely striking the ground with her hooves, easily carrying her flexible body and slightly - uncertainly turning her head to one side. Then she stopped and waited until the deer, slowly and forcefully moving her legs, almost caught up with her, then she ran on. Apparently, she terribly 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 was covered with dark clouds, the tundra turned brown and plunged into twilight. Now Tutch went for walks with us. We walked along the thickets of willows along the paths pierced by deer against the course of migration (Tutch ran ahead with the cubs) and suddenly froze in place. Ahead, on a rise between the hills, stood two deer. They just showed up and saw us right away.
Tutch rushed towards them. The five 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. Wary of the animal, which did not flee, Tutch, with no apparent hope of success, rushed after the running deer and soon disappeared from sight.
In the meantime, the young wolves, with uncertain throws, 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 born deer hunters, and eventually chased the deer. She ran straight at us along the migration route.
It was a strange hunt. The deer ran, slipping slightly on the ice-covered puddles. Behind her, stretched out in a chain, the wolves thrashed clumsily.
It was unbelievable, but it was true. Although she wasn't running very fast, they still couldn't catch up with her. About fifty feet from us, she stood in front of them, knelt down, lay down. The cubs, still not daring to approach, surrounded her in a reddish-brown crowd. Safe and sound, she got up, turned and ran on, but after a few yards she turned back to face them and lay down. This time, the cubs didn't let her out.
Finish her off! I pleaded. - Knife, anything!
I ran home for some weapons. On the way back I met Chris.
They've already gnawed her throat out,” he said.
We went to the corpse. The faces of the wolves were smeared with blood. We examined the deer's body. The lungs were only partially swollen. They had eight abscesses, some the size of a ping-pong ball, partially hidden by lung tissue. They looked like cysts formed by a lung tapeworm.
The next day we again set off back along the migration route.
A lone deer appeared towards us, and Tutch chased it. Empty work, we thought, but as soon as the deer and the dog disappeared behind the hill, I realized that the incredible was about to happen.
She will chase him! - I said.
It seems so.
Lai was getting closer. Chris set up a movie camera. A deer and a dog appeared, they ran at us. The wolves moved cautiously towards them. Tutch grabbed the reindeer by the hind leg and pulled.
The deer fell, then with difficulty got up, twisting his shoulder blades and straining his neck to the ground, but his hind legs did not obey him. Tutch grabbed his hamstrings.
He lay down and lay quietly, betraying nothing of his torment, deceptively calm, as if resting, while around him that monstrous thing was going on, from which one had to run and run: screams, whistling, fuss of furry animals smelling of death and horror. He again made a desperate attempt to get up, but Tutch quickly, savagely shook his wounded leg, grabbed him by the throat. The wolves hesitantly closed the circle.
It was a terrible, 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 - to find out why it was a "slow" deer. But this was impossible, since the carcass was almost completely cleaned by wild wolves. Only a few heaps of gnawed bones remained, scattered along the edge of the willow thickets; the wild birds dragged 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 rushed from us at full speed, 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 pantry with meat.
One of the deer was a male, and later Chris "stole" meat from the carcass, storing it for the future for our wolves. The other was a baby. It was he who revealed to us the secret of "rocking horses".
We have seen rocking horses since the very beginning of our stay in the Arctic: very few in May, many in July. In all likelihood, they did not survive the winter, considering how difficult it is for them to tear through the snow in search of food.
So by killing the rocking horse, the wolves were killing an animal that probably wouldn't survive the winter anyway.
At first we decided that the "rocking horses" were reindeer with broken legs. However, the deer had a swollen, diseased leg. Half of the horny cover of the hoof came off, the rest dangled on a swollen leg, which looked like a bloody, fleshy stump or stump. The entire leg was covered in long hair, a sign that the animal had hardly used it. Before us was clear evidence of the prevalence of hoof disease among deer.
In 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 skillfully hidden in the willows on the bank of a snow-swept stream - probably a polar fox - that we could not have found it ourselves. Only a skinned one survived from the carcass rib cage there were no legs. It is likely that we would have found signs of hoof disease on them. Another deer, like the very first, had a swollen, diseased leg.
Deer corpses were rare. On the heels of the migration was a pack of no more than five wolves, just like last year. But in 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 ashlings - three deer, two of which were clearly crippled, and one male. There can hardly be any doubt that this male, like the deer hunted down by Tutch, was "slow." Wolves simply cannot compete in running with healthy deer.
During our entire stay in the Arctic, the only healthy deer that fell victim to wolves before our eyes were deer in the midst of a large herd. We have seen many cases of wolves hunting deer. Once, Silvermane chased a deer over a 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 the outcome will be. A prey deer is a deer that cannot run fast. And he cannot run fast either because of a hoof disease, or because his lungs are affected by a tapeworm, or because his nostrils are clogged with nasal gadfly larvae. And if a sick deer dies, this is not a loss for the herd, but for the animal itself - deliverance from torment.
On the other hand, we have seen deer, seemingly in a hopeless situation, flee from the wolves. For example, pregnant females in May, just before calving. And also babies. We saw how a healthy deer, 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 “measured the ground with his steps” - he threw his legs forward so far that he seemed to be rushing through the air, and he did it completely automatically.
Even the "rocking deer", as we happened to observe once, kept up with the herd, running away from Tutch.
Wolves destroy deer selectively, selecting not the strongest, but the weakest. They did the same with the buffalo 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 who die by accident or are too weak and skinny to keep up with the herd.
But is it good that healthy deer also die? The convincing answer to this was given by the deer themselves far south of the Arctic Circle, just at the time when 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 Nelchinsk herd of deer, which then numbered 4,000 heads.
Ten years later, it was already 42,000 heads - an incredible figure!
True, records are not always kept by 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. According to Dr. Starker Leopold and Dr. Fraser Darling in their book The Wild Animals of Alaska, as early as 1953 these pastures appeared to have been severely depleted. By 1957, the lichen cover on them was trampled down, broken through, 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 region, but also to declare it a kind of wolf reserve and forbid the shooting of wolves in it. In other words, on the Nelchinsk pastures, the wolf was taken under the protection of the law, whereas before it had been a merciless struggle.
This turn of one hundred and eighty degrees was caused by the fear that the number of reindeer herds could exceed their ability to feed in winter conditions. After many years of struggle with wolves, the administrative authorities saw in the wolf a useful, moreover, necessary regulator of the deer breeding process and abandoned the program of its extermination. It was a colossal step forward in the public understanding of where actual wildlife conservation ends and reckless scapegoating begins.
One night, an eerie, like an obsession, event happened: a big wolf climbed up the mountain to us. We found his footprints in the morning on the freshly fallen snow; they led up the path to the barracks and paddock. Is it possible that Kurok was running along with the pack that was roaming the area, and that he decided to “drop in home” when the pack 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 7, the last deer passed by us. For us, this was the last of the migrations that marked the time of our stay in the Arctic like beats of the pulse.
HERD, noun. A group of animals, usually of the same species, grazing together
HERD, noun. S.-x., collected. number of farm animals
HERD, noun. A group of mammals, birds, fish of the same species, sticking together
HERD, noun. Translated, neglected. large unorganized group of people, crowd
HERD OF RAMS, Stable combination. Razg., contempt., trans. a crowd, a group of people blindly following some leader
Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov
HERD, herds, pl. herds, cf. 1. A group of animals of the same species (usually bred for economic purposes). The herd is grazing in the forest. Nekrasov. On the wet shores roaming herds, smoky barns and winged mills. Pushkin. Village herd. Herd of cows. The cow walks in the herd. Deer herd. Let the herd. The black sheep will spoil the whole flock. Proverb. || Large number, flock. Birds fly in flocks. Krylov. I scare a herd of wild ducks. Pushkin. Herd of seals. || trans. crowd, unorganized gathering (colloquial disdain). At his feet lay a frightened herd of people. Saltykov-Shchedrin. Walk in a herd. 2. only units The total number of livestock, game animals, livestock (econ.). During the years of five-year plans, the herd of cattle has sharply increased. White Sea herd of seals. Panurge's herd (book) - a crowd recklessly following its leader, senseless imitators (on behalf of Panurge, the hero
Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary
HERD, cf. many homogeneous animals together, together; crowd, heap, crowd, osprey of animals; | yard cattle grazing together of one owner, or one village, city, locality, south. succession. The lordly herd walks in the meadows, and the peasants go for a couple. We don’t have a herd, the cattle walks in confusion, there is nowhere to graze, there is no pasture, no cattle. Herd of cows, sheep, goats, pigs. There is no flock without a shepherd. Herd of cattle for driving, herd. Herd of sheep, sowing. fleece, southern flock. A herd of pigs, ryukha. A horse herd, a reindeer (Northern) herd, a herd, and a stallion with his mares is a herd. Wolves walk in the winter in herds, in a crowd, in a gang. Sometimes the squirrel roams in herds, flocks. Herd of yard geese, ducks, herd, esp. distant. Herd of wild birds, flock, village, east. a herd, and a stretched goose is a string. A herd of friendly fish, village, school, flock, fleece, Yurovo. Station of snakes. Hive. Pillars of midges, a club of mosquitoes. A club, a pillar, a swarm of pushers. Pack of dogs. Cloud of locusts. One black sheep destroys the whole flock. Seven shepherds do not have a flock of sheep, or: a flock is self-interest for a wolf. It used to be, ah-ah, it was hard (said the Tatar): if it's a holiday, then drag the head of the ram! " And now?" It became quite easy: we drive in a herd! And the camel is great, but it wanders in vain, the goat is small, but it leads the herd. The miracle worker Nikola tends our flock, we do not keep a shepherd. Where the flock goes, there the sheep goes. It is better to follow the herd than to lead the herd. Though behind, but in the same herd (in the same herd). I took the herd to graze, so graze our cow. Behind a rabid herd, not to be a winged shepherd. In a harmonious herd, the wolf is not terrible. If only I were tending the flock, I would save a conversation. | *Flock, parish or parish, office of a priest; and the archpastoral flock, all the laity of the diocese. I feed the verbal herd. | *Brothers, monks of one monastery. Buy the abbot and the whole flock of St. Michael's land, etc. old. Clouds go in herds, in multitude and in one way. Stadtse, stadenko, -nushko, diminish. Stadishko, scorn. Stage, increase. Herd cattle that walks in a herd. Herd places, many herds. Schooling fish, schooling, rune. Partridge is a herd, does not keep alone. Herd groom, old. herdsman, shepherd. The herd, the caretaker of the herds and shepherds, or the owner of the whole herd. Herd cattle, gather in a herd. Autumn herds the bird, drives it in flocks, flocks. -sya, flock, converge, flock in flocks, herds. Wolves herd in the wilderness. The migrating bird flocks. When a wolf becomes a sheep, a bear a herdsman, a pig a gardener.
Reindeer herding in most areas Far North is the main branch of agricultural production. In addition to the main cash income, the population receives from deer the main food product - meat, and deer skins are used to make winter clothes, shoes and dwellings (plagues, yarangas, bolkn). Deer is a transport animal, without which hunting fur trade is unthinkable. Reindeer transport is used by geological exploration, land management and other expeditions. Every year, various goods, food and materials are delivered to deep, inaccessible areas on reindeer. Made from deer skins beautiful lungs furs, as well as high-quality suede, which is used in the aviation, optical, and shoe industries. Reindeer wool is used in the furniture and saddlery industry. Reindeer down is used to make felt, knitwear and other products that retain heat well. Deer antlers (antlers) shed annually are used to make glue and gelatin. Various bone products are also made from antlers.
Systems and methods of keeping deer. Depending on the geographical area, natural conditions, economy and national characteristics of the indigenous population in various reindeer herding areas, various forms of reindeer keeping are used.
Keeping reindeer in herds. The most perfect and appropriate collective form of reindeer husbandry is the year-round system of keeping 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 (Chukotka and Koryak national districts) regions of the country.
So, in the Nenets district, herds of deer guard around the clock in all seasons of the year. For this, reindeer 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 prevents the movement of the reindeer team, or in summer in the heat, when the mounts are very worried and confuse the harness. But even in such periods, reindeer herders ride reindeer from the herd to the plague and back. The constant use of reindeer dogs and reindeer teams on duty facilitates the work of shepherds and makes it more productive.
The situation is different in the reindeer herding of the eastern regions of the country, where, with the year-round deer keeping in herds, until recently reindeer dogs were used to a very small extent, and the shepherds on duty in the summer and autumn grazed the reindeer on foot, limitedly using reindeer teams in the winter. spring period. Such organization of reindeer herding significantly complicates the already hard work of a reindeer herder.
Keeping deer in fenced areas. In some areas of mountain taiga and forest reindeer husbandry (Murmansk region, Evenk national district, Yakutia), reindeer are grazed on fenced pastures to preserve them. When fencing the area, natural barriers are used to the maximum extent: lakes, rivers, impenetrable thickets of bushes, etc. If the fenced area of pastures has an adequate supply of food, the semi-free keeping of deer on it contributes to a rapid increase in the fatness of animals and guarantees their safety. Currently, many farms are moving to a system of keeping deer in fenced areas.
For the construction of fences, local materials - poles and poles - can be used. But the best material should be considered galvanized wire mesh. Such a mesh with 10 cm cells is light, strong, durable and reliably encloses pasture areas.
The free camp keeping of deer provides for a much greater degree of reindeer domestication compared to other grazing systems. Such a degree of domestication is achieved by systematic feeding of deer with mineral licks, food leftovers, periodic tying of calves and their mothers near a nomadic dwelling, protection 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.
Reindeer, accustomed from a very early age to constant contact with humans, do not go far from the nomadic dwellings of reindeer herders with a fairly frequent change of grazing areas.
and get used to returning to it when danger arises - an attack by wolves, a massive appearance of midges, etc. But even with such a system of keeping animals, it is absolutely necessary from time to time to bypass the grazing herd, collect deer and, therefore, have 1
- shepherds responsible for keeping the livestock.
Free pasture of deer. In some areas of reindeer breeding (Kola Peninsula, Khanty-Mansiysk Okrug), free and semi-free keeping of reindeer was widespread. With this method of keeping deer, the females after calving were dispersed over pastures. Animals grazed without protection, in large numbers were exterminated by predators. After the formation of the snow cover, the deer were collected and sorted into herds and farms by ear marks. This method of keeping deer, as the most extensive, should not be used by reindeer farms.
Hygiene of deer grazing. Properly organized grazing of herds is a necessary prerequisite for a qualitative improvement and increase in the productivity of reindeer herding, since such grazing increases the body's resistance to various infectious and non-infectious diseases.
Effect of winter grazing on deer health. Winter grazing conditions for reindeer are great value for their health (Fig. 56). The main food of deer during this period is moss feed, poor in protein, minerals and vitamins. Therefore, it is necessary to pay special attention to the choice of winter pastures, since maintaining the best fatness of deer by spring will not only reduce the number of diseases, but also give the best fatty meat, the best varieties of skins, the best resistant offspring. Leaving in winter for the southern taiga pastures, rich in frost-resistant herbs, even entails the correction of deer.
The height and density of reindeer moss have great importance to feed deer in winter. They eat only the growing upper parts of the reindeer moss, without touching the underlying, dying parts of it. If on winter pastures the reindeer moss is below 3 cm and is rare, then in winter with deep snow, the deer will lose a lot of weight, since the animals will spend a lot of effort on digging for food when excavating a large area.
Where it is not possible to have pastures with a sufficient amount of frost-resistant greenery, plant leaves, it is necessary to feed deer with brooms, table salt, chalk, hay, salted fish, meat and bone meal during the winter.
A very important factor in winter food is its clogging with sand and 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 hills, with the presence of winding, steep terraces near river valleys, which makes it possible to shelter a herd with calves from strong winds and storms. The soil should be dry, covered with good sod, with good drainage. A calf born under these conditions is not exposed to hypothermia from the soil.
In the forest-tundra zone, the place of calving is chosen near forest islands, which make it possible to hide the herd in them in bad weather and in case of wind. Pay attention also to the dryness of the soil and good drainage.
In the southern mountainous regions of the eastern part of the North, the best pastures for calving are considered deciduous forests with dry soil and good drainage on the southern slopes of the mountains and with the presence of pastures nearby, on which greenery appears early.
Caring for newborn calves. The largest number of calves die among those born on rainy, rainy, windy and snowy days. However, the death of calves can be minimized if on such days the herd is sheltered in the forest between the mountains and each calf born is carefully monitored. All calves born during the day are collected together with their mothers on the driest and warmest pastures. It is known that born calves sleep a lot of time. Prolonged lying on damp ground and in the wind also causes colds. Therefore, the shepherd and the foreman are obliged to constantly monitor the places of lairs of born calves and not allow mothers to take them away from the allotted dry insulated pasture area.
Summer grazing herds. The transition from calving places to summer camps occurs from the middle or from the end of June (depending on the distance of calving places from summer pastures). When moving to a summer camp, pastures near the thunder should be used for no more than four days near one parking lot. A long stay can cause massive infection of deer with dictyocaulosis larvae (lung putrefactive disease).
When approaching summer camps, the foreman must inspect the pasture before the arrival of the herd. In some years, cobwebs and worms appear on the willows beloved by deer. Deer do not eat in such cases the foliage of bushes and starve.
In the heat, you need to use the best pastures in the early morning and evening hours, when the years of insects are sharply reduced due to the cool air. These periods are short, and therefore the choice of thunderstorms and places for installing smokestacks should be linked to the presence of pastures nearby, on which deer would have time to get enough in short periods feeding.
AT northern regions Yakutia and Chukotka along the shores of large lakes in the shallows and along the sandy-silty bottom, from the moment the water recedes, abundant growth of the northern ragwort is often observed. This plant is very readily eaten by deer. However, his young green mass, eaten in large quantities, causes tympania in animals with fatal, therefore, herds of deer should be allowed to such pastures in summer only for a short time, and it is best to use ragwort thickets in autumn. Emaciated, poorly fed animals quickly grow fat on these pastures.
Reindeer grazing in summer is the most responsible business. All the attention of the shepherds in the farms should be directed to right choice grazing and their proper use.
Selection of autumn pastures. September and October in all tundras are very favorable for reindeer grazing. Well-conducted pasturing of herds in summer contributes to the cessation of diseases of the hoof, pneumonia and other diseases and accelerates the onset of the rut. In the same month, chronic lung diseases are exacerbated in the European North, as this is facilitated by rainy, windy weather. To prevent colds, herds must be driven into valleys protected from the wind.
Throughout September, one should strive to select pastures so that the deer find on them not only green fodder, but also reindeer moss.
In rainy autumn, one should not use for grazing large areas of flat pastures with a significant number of lakes with an abundance of even peatlands, since in these conditions the soil becomes very damp. Deer are forced to lie down to chew food in damp places, which in the future often causes pneumonia in calves.
Watering place for deer. Herds of deer often drink water from stagnant, grass-covered sedge shallow mossy marshy swamps, small puddles, from lakes with marshy shores, etc. Staying a herd near lakes with a viscous bottom is extremely dangerous.
In the heat at the watering place, deer often go far into the water. If the soil of the lake is viscous, the deer sink into the silt during watering and sometimes die.
AT clear days the anxiety of the herd by the gadfly begins at half past six in the morning and lasts until 5-6 pm. Deer, huddled together, run in the sun. Thunder (place of whirling) is sometimes at a considerable distance from the watering place. Deer on such days do not go to the watering place, as this intensifies the attack of insects on them.
Some reindeer herders arrange a thunder right on the banks of large lakes and flowing rivers, without preventing the reindeer from approaching for a watering place - and this is right. When a watering place is close, deer often approach the water. At the same time, the drunk cool water takes away part of the heat from the overheated body.
It is impossible to use pasture areas for summer grazing that do not have a watering place, since deer in such areas get sick and scatter. A similar phenomenon is observed in autumn, when rivers and lakes freeze before snow falls. In this case, in order to water the deer, the shepherd's brigades need to make holes in the rivers and lakes along the path of grazing the herd.
Influence of external factors on the body of a deer. The climate of the tundra and the near-tundra zone of the North is extremely diverse. In any of the seasons of the year, there are sharp contrasting transitions from warm to cold and vice versa. The temperature and humidity of the air, the strength of the wind, and the amount of precipitation change extremely sharply, not only depending on the geographical latitude (northern and southern parts of the tundra), but also on the topographic features of the pasture. These external factors have a huge impact on the body of the deer and are often the cause of various diseases. In addition, the normal functioning of the body is strongly influenced by insects (gadflies, flies, gadflies, mosquitoes, midges), which greatly disturb animals, resulting in malnutrition, 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 body of a deer.
influence of sunlight and high temperatures. Sunlight has a very large and versatile effect on the health of animals. Under the action of light, the number of red cells in the blood increases. Metabolism in the body in the light takes place more vigorously than in the dark. In the northernmost tundra, under conditions of shorter summers and a shorter period of feeding on green fodder, deer are smaller than larger deer. taiga zone. If you remove the hair from the skin of a deer in April and May, different skin colors can be observed in different animals: in some - pale pink, in others - slightly grayish. Large bare areas of deer skin in the sun in the summer will be covered with scabs; it is an inflammatory reaction caused by ultraviolet rays. When animals are sheared 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.
Thermal rays, unlike ultraviolet rays, penetrate deeply into the skin of animals. Nevertheless, the temperature of the skin is usually always lower than the temperature of the muscles, internal organs, and due to this, heat is transferred from them to the skin and from it into the air. With an increase in skin temperature to air temperature, heat transfer from the body during weak winds deteriorates. On hot days and in the absence of insects, the body temperature of the deer reaches 39.5-40 ° C, the animal begins to breathe heavily in order to reduce body temperature by evaporating water through the lungs. If you put a deer in the shade, then after 10-15 minutes he will begin to breathe normally, and his body temperature will drop to normal.
The release of heat 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 excessively 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 Airways deer. On such days, the mucous membranes of the nasal cavities and trachea of deer are strongly hyperemic, the small blood vessels penetrating them are dilated. When attacked by insects, animals behave restlessly and lose a lot of weight. Hair shedding and horn growth stop after 8-10 days of such weather. In the herds there are many sick with a hoof, this disease lasts a long time and after the end of the heat.
With drier air in the summer heat, in the presence of wind, it is easier for a deer to adapt to the release of water and heat from the body. Evaporation of excess water by mucous membranes in dry air occurs without hindrance, and a sharp violation of thermoregulation in the body of a deer is not observed.
The adverse effects of moist and dry air, as well as the disturbance caused by insects, are much easier for deer to bear in the shade than in the open. Therefore, for herds of deer it is necessary to make shady shelters in the low-lying tundra, without which it is impossible to achieve normal activity of the deer organism, therefore, it is impossible to eliminate diseases that occur in summer. Sheds protect the herds from insects and from the heat rays of the sun. Spraying with solutions of DDT and hexochlorane, the use of shady shelters, smokers alleviate the situation of reindeer herds. Do not leave deer in the drought zone. It is necessary to take them to the big never-drying rivers.
Influence of low temperature. Animals tolerate low air temperatures much easier than high ones. So, 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 an increase in overall metabolism. Well-fed, healthy deer, having a richly developed layer of subcutaneous fat and a normally developed coat, endure the cold better than emaciated and sick ones.
Low air temperature at strong wind acts on the deer to a greater extent than in calm weather. So, for example, a frost of 30 degrees in the absence of wind is tolerated by animals much better than a 10-degree frost with a strong wind.
The effect of dust on the incidence of deer. In the tundra there are pastures with little grass, with sparse vegetation, and in some places with a complete absence of it. This happens most often on sandy soils exposed to winds, as well as on dry peat pastures. During the attack of the nasal gadfly, herds of deer willingly stop at such sandy places. At the slightest wind and when deer run from insects, sand, rising into the air, enters the respiratory tract of the animal. In addition, in dry summers, a lot of dust settles on sedges in the form of a rusty-brown coating. Dust particles that get on the mucous membranes of the respiratory tract cause inflammation, which contributes to the penetration of infection into the lungs of a deer (bronchitis develops). In the future, deer develop severe lung diseases. Therefore, dusty pastures should be avoided in every possible way in the summer and in no case should you arrange a thunder on them.
Insect influence. On pastures, both tundra, intermountain, and forest, in the summer on warm days there are always a lot of mosquitoes. Their years begin at an air temperature of 6°C and above. As temperatures and humidity increase, mosquitoes are more of a concern to the herd. Deer are especially affected by mosquitoes during the period of rapid molting, when the skin of the body is covered with short hair. During the period of the mass appearance of mosquitoes, the deer loses about 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 in peace. Therefore, there are sometimes cases of death of deer from severe anemia caused by blood loss from mosquitoes. To combat mosquitoes, Nabakov's checkers, smokers are successfully used.
Midges usually appear in the last decade of July, and their years sometimes continue until September. These weak flyers do not withstand strong winds (from 4 m/s), but on days with less weak winds and on calm days, they greatly disturb the herd. Midges climb into the groin, on the eyelids, on the ends of the horns, on the site of the anus and in other places. When bitten near the eye, its mucous membrane becomes inflamed, swells, and lacrimation begins.
Industrial and domestic buildings in reindeer herding. Buildings currently used in reindeer herding can be divided into three groups depending on their purpose. The first group includes hedges, shady canopies, stationary and portable corals; to the second - slaughterhouses, warehouses, devices for the primary processing of products, glaciers; to the third - light portable dwellings: plagues, bolts and tents.
Fences for reindeer grazing. The size of the fence for reindeer grazing depends on the capacity of reindeer pastures, the size of the herd and the configuration of the fenced area. In reindeer herding, the following stationary types of fences are used: wire, pole and simple gorodba. The height of a hedge of any type is 1.4-1.5 m. The poles are dug to a depth of 0.5-0.6 m. To prolong the service life, the poles and poles must be sanded.
Stationary and portable corals. A stationary corral is a structure of a round shape or the shape of an elongated drop. It consists of a general and preliminary pens of the working chamber, additional compartments, internal and external openings.
The general corral corral should be spacious enough. Its area is determined at the rate of 1.5-2 m2 per head. Pre-corral should be built barrel-shaped. Its greatest width is 10-12 m, length is 25-30 m. The working chamber has the shape of a 5-6-facet with a diameter of 5-6 m.
Portable corals have significant advantages over stationary ones. They allow veterinary treatment of reindeer directly at the herd grazing sites, which saves reindeer herders from driving reindeer over long distances and eliminates the possibility of trampling near-shore pastures, which almost always happens when working in a stationary corral. There are several types of portable corals (rope, fabric and nylon).
Deer weighing chamber. It has centesimal scales, a shield attached to the platform of the scales, a brake that secures the shield in a non-working position. The chamber is made of poles or light boards. It is installed above the weight platform. The camera rests on four racks 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-weight platform. Throughput capacity of the camera - 7080 heads per hour.
Shade and protective canopies. Shade canopies are used to shelter deer from the scorching rays of the sun and protect them from insect attacks. 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 breeding farms with the expectation of serving several shepherd brigades in the summer-autumn period of the year. They should have dwelling houses of a simple design, a first-aid post, a bakery, a trading stall, a radio transceiver station, storerooms, and a glacier. At intermediate bases, reindeer herders are supplied with food and manufactured goods, receive medical care and communicate with the administrative center of the farm. For small farms, it is expedient to create inter-collective-farm intermediate bases.
Slaughterhouses. To avoid losses and spoilage of slaughter products, special slaughterhouses are built in reindeer farms - permanent and mobile.
Stationary slaughterhouses, processing 500-600 reindeer carcasses per day, can serve several reindeer breeding farms, i.e., serve as inter-collective farm or inter-district slaughterhouses. To service one farm, small stationary slaughterhouses are built with a capacity of 150-200 heads per shift.
Due to the specific conditions of reindeer herding, 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 unprofitable to equip slaughterhouses with expensive equipment. When slaughtering, it is necessary to have a corral, glacier or permafrost for storing meat and a freezer. To service the slaughterhouse with a capacity of 500,600 reindeer per day, 40-45 people are required, including 25 for the main jobs, 15-20 for the auxiliary ones.
Mobile slaughterhouses make it possible to slaughter deer where it is convenient and profitable for the farm, saving pastures from trampling.
Portable dwellings. The main type of portable dwelling for the nomadic population of the North is the chum. Currently, there are three types of tents of improved designs: wooden with metal attachment points, all-metal, all-wood.
Bolks are small mobile houses mounted on sleds. The wooden frame of the bolk is covered with chintz (bottom layer), reindeer skins and canvas. The dimensions of the middle beam are: 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 District. Here, the bolok has firmly entered the life of the local population.
Tents as temporary portable dwellings for shepherds and specialists engaged in reindeer herding are widespread. Two people set up a tent in 5 minutes.
Products. big practical value antlers, blood, milk, processed meat (up to 130 kg per reindeer) are in the reindeer economy. In addition to antler products, various types of by-products can be obtained from deer. Of these, blood is of great interest. reindeer. Animal blood is a cheap source of natural raw materials for medical and veterinary preparations. When creating donor groups of deer, it is possible to produce various blood preparations all year round, in particular RANGEM. It can also be used as a protein-mineral supplement for caged fur animals. And when industrial processing blood meal, light and dark albumin are obtained from it. One of the unique and valuable products of reindeer breeding is milk. Reindeer milk can be used as a therapeutic mixture, as an additive to baby food, as a base for cosmetics. All of the above will really increase the profitability of reindeer farms, thereby raising the interest of reindeer herders in the development of industry specialization in antler, meat, and dairy areas.
According to scientists, reindeer breeding in the south of Siberia arose about four thousand years ago. Even N.Ya. Marr, a connoisseur of the East, conjectured that the population of the Sayan-Altai used a deer as a pet long before the horse and the bull.
In the past, this animal was of exceptional importance in people's lives. Without a deer, a person could not master 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, obedient animals. The deer differs from other animals in the greatest adaptability to the conditions of both mountain taiga and mountain tundra.
The climatic conditions and characteristics of the Sayans and a certain food base (not only reindeer moss, but also young grass, some shrubs and mushrooms) force the deer to constantly change grazing places. A person, adapting to the habits of a deer, was forced to live where the deer needed it. And hence, in the past, the way of life of the people - tofa, a resident of the central Sayan, his constant migrations with his whole family within the territory. This special arrangement of the dwelling is a plague and the presence in the household of only the most necessary.
Starting from the 30s of our century, the tofs gradually switched to a settled way of life. And if earlier the whole family lived in close proximity to nature, everyone was engaged in reindeer breeding: both adults and children, now the reindeer herds of the Tofalar coop animal farm are grazing a dozen and a half shepherds, and several calves and calves go to the herds for calving. One might have thought that such a rearrangement of the way of life of the hunter-herders should have changed the specific maintenance of the deer, but the climatic conditions and the annual cycle of pasture change remained the same as before, so the forms and methods of reindeer herding remain basically the same.
This article is devoted to the description production work 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, including 5 shepherds, 5 calves and calves and one livestock specialist, currently a pensioner.
When does the year of the reindeer herder begin? I asked the reindeer herders. Everyone called different time- Well, since January, of course! , With a summer count of deer. From the spring calving of deer, etc.
But many consider the beginning of the year to be the time of birth of anai deer - these extremely defenseless, gentle, shy creatures. The calves, who have worked in the reindeer herd almost all their lives, who gave the warmth of their hands to nursing the Anais, remember this period with special warmth, although there were more than enough worries and anxiety of labor.
Of course, any point of reference for the beginning of the year can be taken from the entire cycle of works, but it is logical to describe the year of the reindeer breeder from the time of the revival of nature in the spring, and the author is pleased to start a kind of report from April, when preparations for the deer department begin.
As noted by the Nerkha shepherds Shibkeev I.P. and Shibkeev V.R. migrations of all deer 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 the season makes reindeer herders move to where it is better for the reindeer, where the food conditions are better. The deer dictates the cyclicity 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 survived to our time.
The first migration begins in late March, early April, when shepherds drive deer 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 have been used more than once. They returned here after a certain period of time, after the reindeer moss grew up. But if the pasture did not have time to become scarce in a year, then the deer were driven 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 Shibkeev V.N. explained: There is enough food here. In spring, summer and autumn, deer feed not only on moss 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 and for many years. It is a comfortable, vast area with a variety of landscapes. There are mushroom places, areas with grass, in general, in this taiga there is a lot of reindeer moss and good pastures.
As a rule, before calving, shepherds do convenient platform paddock for deer and calves. Sometimes old ones are used, and in the Nerkhinsky herd they prefer to do without pens altogether. They managed to develop their justified system of methods of caring for calves and mothers. And the mothers are brought in early so that they get used to the pastures, tame to the camp, where salt licks are necessarily made.
The calves try to arrive at the place by April 20, since already at the end of April individual deer begin to calve (tofs call them ingen, in the literature it’s nice - vazhenka).
In recent years, fewer and fewer women come to calve, they are replaced by male calves.
As soon as the calves arrive at the herd, they immediately take ingens from the shepherds and mark them using the old method. They cut their initials with scissors or a knife on the sides of the female, if the broodstock is large and there are several calves. When anai-deer is born, then the same thing is done on its sides. If the herd is small, then numbers are cut on the sides of both the ingen and the anaya. Previously, a distinctive ribbon of each calf was tied to the horns of the ingen if the herd was large. But even without these marks, every calf-calf knows her ingens well, by sight.
ingens calve in different dates- start at the end of April and finish in mid-June. Mass calving may be delayed or accelerated by one to two weeks. It depends on various reasons: on the state of the weather, on the fatness of the deer, on keeping the deer in winter, and most importantly, on the timing of the deer rut in the fall. If deer hens cover at the same time in autumn, then the calving dates for all ingens will also be more or less the same. Nerkha shepherds say that their calving ends before mid-June, and by June 20 they go to reindeer pastures. The same is claimed by the shepherd of the transport herd Shibkeev V.V. (on Migalma). But in the herds on Hailom and Barbitai, calving continues until the end of June, and only at the beginning of July they migrate to the White Mountains. This was reported by Ungushtaev P.N., Adamova V.V., Adamova G.N.
Now, the so-called free grazing has begun to be practiced in the coop animal farm, that is, the Ingens are not tied before calving, they graze freely, appear at the camp to get enough salt. Experienced female calves, as a rule, immediately determine when the female should calve and, immediately before calving, they are tied either at the corral or nearby, choosing a dry, even, comfortable place. But now young guys work as calves, they are inexperienced in this business, they cannot determine the timing of calving, and therefore ingens are increasingly lost in the taiga. It is easy to detect the departure of the important woman into the taiga. If one of the females does not appear at the camp within one or two days, then it means that she has gone to calve, and then the shepherd is included 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 - they keep the need for salt. The shepherd knows the area well, especially if he has worked for many years and therefore guesses where the female should calve. She always chooses a dry, elevated, level place, somewhere under a cedar.
When the shepherd finds a deer and determines the state of the anai, if he is healthy, strong and grazes with his mother, he tries to overtake 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 it. It is impossible to catch, take and carry Anaya. If it is moved, then the female will circle around the place of calving all the time, looking for anai here. She won't be able to track him down. Naturally, anai without milk can die. Another important woman will not let him near her, only her own. But most often, the Ingen with the Anai themselves come to the camp. The deer needs salt.
With such a system of "free" grazing, a large percentage of the death of anais comes out up to 30% (1990). They become the prey of predators, some of the weakened die on the way to the camp, drown when crossing large streams. Sometimes very weak anai are born. They cannot rise and reach for 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 interviewed old reindeer herders condemn the system of free grazing and recall with pleasure how it was before ten years ago. As soon as the calves take 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 tie them up at the paddocks or next to the hut or the plague, choosing places convenient for calving, dry and even. At night, usually two are on duty, they go several times at night and check those ingens who are about to calve. At the hotel they take care of the anai, help the ingen, do everything that is needed.
A weak newborn anaya is always helped to feed him twice, for this they hold the deer so that it does not spin, and lift the anaya to the nipples. Sometimes a weak anaya immediately after birth is sprinkled with salt from above, so that the deer licks the anaya dry, it immediately becomes warmer when it is dry, after which the anaya must be fed immediately. In the event that the mothers did not accept their anaes, they used a trick. They gave the ingen a little and poured its own milk over the deer, then salted it on top and let the mother lick it. She sniffs it, licks it, and then it is sure to take it.
During the day, all non-calving Ingens are taken on a leash to a pasture where there is fresh food. There, everyone is tied to long solbaks lying on the ground, in which holes for leashes are cut. 2-3 deer are tied to one solbak. The calves, observing the order, are on duty in the pasture and make sure to move the solbak to another place when the deer have eaten all the moss for the length of the leash. Sometimes deer themselves move the solbak by pulling on the reins. Such work is carried out with the whole group of deer. But if they assume that the female can calve during the day, then they leave her in the camp. In this case, harvested moss is brought to her. When a female calf calves in the pasture during the day, then again, under supervision, she is assisted. The advantages of this method are undeniable. All Ingen and Anai are always under the supervision of reindeer herders. This ensures maximum safety of the offspring.
Of course, even now the calf-keepers are trying to save all the anai, but with such a free system, losses are inevitable. And it is not for nothing that the old shepherds say: “Now many Anais are dying on free grazing and deer are becoming less and less, soon there will be no deer at all.”
Now we should talk about the system of taming anaev and the way of grazing ingens. The most important task in this spring period in reindeer breeding is the safety of both an individual anaya and the entire herd. At birth, any calf female 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 deer to suck the mother, and if they miss this moment, then he may not survive. To excite him to suck, massage the lips and tongue.
After the birth of Anaya, the woman is immediately released. Now she won’t go far, she will definitely come back. Each Anaya is protected and cared for in every possible way. Experienced female calves are good at taming deer. They always try to stroke, caress, talk to him. Salt is given at 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 calves are convinced that only by affectionate attitude can it be tame, and this is important in the future, because if you do not tame the anaya, then the deer will also be wild. It will be difficult to pack him, and it will be difficult to catch him, even entangled, and almost impossible if he is not entangled, only if you catch him in a pen.
It is very important to tame anai to a leash. It is necessary to start doing this immediately after calving. In Alygdzher herds, this is the practice: after 3-4 hours, a bridle with mungui is put on a newborn. (Munguy is a special wooden device for tying an aiai). Then the anai gets used very quickly, if taming 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 in 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 moonguy is still a tough 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 moonguy.
The system of alternating pastures of ingen and anaya, as the former livestock specialist Kangaraeva E.N. says, has existed among tofs for a long time. This system is a well-established, proven age-old experience of reindeer herding. The main principle of keeping deer and calves is that their grazing alternates strictly sequentially. Surely one of them is 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 calves are not allowed to let the ingen and the anai go together into the taiga, then the process of domestication is violated. This method allows you to save the offspring and tame the future deer to a person.
In the transport herd on Migalma and in other Alygdzher herds, the spring grazing system is one-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, they tie the deer, and let the anaes go, they graze in the evening, run, and at night lie next to the deer.
In the Nerkhinsky herd, as Shibkeev V.R. said, the anaev are kept on a leash for the whole day, and they are released to graze twice. At seven o'clock in the morning the Anaevs are tied up, and the Ingens graze until noon. At one o'clock in the afternoon, the Ingens are tied up, and the Anai graze. At five o'clock in the evening, the Ingens are released to graze until nine o'clock in the evening, naturally the anai are tied. And already at nine o'clock in the evening the Ingens are tied up again. And the anai graze at night, and then go to bed at night near their mothers. In Nerja, as we see, a two-shift grazing system is carried out. Previously, such a system was in all herds; in all likelihood, it is more suitable for the tasks of taming deer and preparing it for work with humans.
A few words about the bridles. For the reindeer, 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, at the very horns, they are fastened below the neck. Anaya is tied with 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 moonguy rein is tied to the end of the bolt - a kind of wooden carabiner, thanks to which the rein does not twist. Now mostly old mungoons, new ones are rarely made. They tie deer and anaev to everything possible: to roots, to trees, to specially hewn stumps, solbaks, to poles of corrals, etc.
The calving of deer is coming to an end. Anaichiki grow up and get stronger. The middle of summer is approaching. It is getting warmer, and blood-sucking insects begin to appear, of which the most dangerous for a deer is the paut. He then 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 last year's snow faces on the northern slopes of mountain ranges and wait there until the evening coolness. No less painful, there are bites of midges, mosquitoes, midges. In mid-June, deer begin to molt, peel off hair and wool, and undercoat remains - a thin layer of fluff. Insects easily reach the skin and sting the deer.
Pastures in the basin of the Khailema River, where the Alygdzher herd grazes, are surrounded on all sides by loaches. The snow does not melt there for a long time and the climate is colder. Paut appears only in early July. But in the Nerkhinsky herd and on Migalma, one has to roam from June 20 or a little later. Here the climate is warmer and insects appear earlier.
Senior shepherd of the Nerkhinsky 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. You don’t have to drive the deer too much, they don’t scatter, they go with the whole herd, since the paut has 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 deer. Then all at once distilled. A shepherd leads a few deer in front, and we drive behind. Deer do not scatter, they themselves rush there, the paut drives, the midge drives.
The place of the summer camp is chosen in advance. They take into account the number of deer and the possibilities of forage in the area, 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 can be seen for long distances. Or sometimes they are located in the very upper reaches of the rivers, at their sources, cirques, the crests of which serve as natural borders of pastures on the northern slopes of the cirque, snow usually lies, 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 diverse herbage. And on the border with the mountain-tundra zone in sparse forests of larch and cedar and a lot of reindeer moss - a complete expanse 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, they put up a chum or a tent. Salt licks are necessarily made near the camp. They do not build pens, but they adapt hemp for binding deer and make solbaks.
At present, as soon as the deer are driven to the upper camp, the entire herd is inspected. Accounting is carried out by the senior shepherd together with the calves. He accepts from them all: both the Anaev and the Ingen. After that, the calves are released from work until next spring. Previously, the calves handed over their wards at the end of September before the release of deer to hunters. Probably, there was a reason for this: all summer and part of autumn, the anai were under the careful supervision of experienced calves.
After counting, the entire herd switches to free grazing, that is, both anai and ingen are not tied, although some herds still use a partially spring grazing system. Now the shepherds believe that reindeer do not need to be tied in Belogorye, they will not leave the squirrels anywhere, the paut will not make it possible to go down to the valley. Paut is a good shepherd. So, they always come to the deer camp at least once a day to salt licks, and on hot days they are driven by cobwebs to the smokehouse if there is no snow nearby. In the summer pasture, deer constantly graze in a herd. But sometimes the herd is divided into large groups, which sometimes disperse quite far. However, searching in this case is not particularly difficult. They are found and herd driven back to the camp.
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 on top, it is necessary to move on to autumn pastures.
Even at the beginning, not to the main pasture, but to the river valleys, where there are mushrooms. Shepherds plan such areas as temporary, intermediate pastures on the way to the main one. There is a paddock nearby and salt licks are sure to be arranged in it. If the corral is not planned, then salt licks are made variably, since this is the only means to sometimes collect deer for their count. Deer at this time disperse through the taiga in search of mushrooms. They no longer walk in a herd as before, but graze in small groups of 2-4 deer. This is how the oldest reindeer breeder Ungushtaev P.N. spoke about this period: at this time it is very difficult for shepherds to look for deer. Who thinks well, he finds places where there are a lot of mushrooms. He drives the deer there, 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 by themselves, others are found and driven by shepherds.
On the main autumn pasture, huts for reindeer herders and always good paddocks, often two-section, have been built lately. Corrals are made up to three meters high, it is impossible to go lower, deer easily jump. At the beginning, the corral is used to keep the anai, and then to count the deer. Anai still continue to suckle their mother and the shepherds, using the related instincts of deer, try to keep the herd with the same spring grazing system: during the day they tie the ingens, and at night the anai.
In the first half of September, they begin to saw off the antlers of deer, as they are heavy, branched and interfere with grazing. But additional difficulties are created by antlers when deer are used for transport and hunting purposes. First of all, the horns of the bull-producer are removed, because during the mating season, which will begin, 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, some deer had their antlers removed in the summer and, after appropriate processing, they were sold as medicinal raw materials.
In mid-September, the mating deer rut begins. Each herd contains several sires, each creating their own harems by this time. The race ends in October. At this time, it is very important for shepherds that the mating of females takes place in a short time, this will have a positive effect on spring calving. That is why the shepherds try to gather the whole herd in the first half of September.
In early October, either a brigade or individual hunters come to the herd from the village to select deer for hunting. They select themselves and look for riding reindeer themselves, if at that moment they roam the taiga. Along the way, the shepherds keep a record of the entire herd before migrating for winter grazing. Previously, the calves at the same time handed over ingens and anais to the senior shepherd, and themselves, having received riding reindeer, went hunting. Calves-pensioners Adamovs V.V. and G.N. they complain: we would still hunt if they gave us deer. We can still shoot. Previously, they worked until old age, they did not retire.
In the autumn, a veterinarian or livestock specialist comes to the herd and castrates young bulls.
After completing all these works, the shepherds drive the herd to the winter pasture, this is in the second half of October.
As in other cases, before moving, be sure to choose a suitable place. It should be higher in the mountains, more or less flattened territory in cedar forests. Usually there is enough reindeer moss in cedars. And in the middle part of the mountains it is warmer in winter. They do not make winter camps along the river valleys. As always, along the rivers, cold chius is drawn from the upper reaches, and it is difficult to defend against it. And on the mountain rivers are often ice. They humidify the air, and moist and cold air has a stronger effect on people and animals.
An important role in the choice of pasture is played by the state of reindeer moss. Wet reindeer moss is very undesirable for winter parking. They form in autumn when, after rain or wet snow the reindeer moss will get wet and covered with an ice crust. It is very difficult for a deer to get it from under the snow, you need to break the ice to get the moss. The deer damages the 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 herding - this is natural. Work is associated with great physical stress, especially in cases with frequent unfavorable conditions. weather conditions. But in winter it is still more difficult and more difficult, although in winter period deer stay in large groups and do not scatter far. There are, of course, exceptions, their need for salt and pasture, successfully chosen with dry reindeer moss and shallow snow, keeps them going.
November passes. In December, many hunters return their deer 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 work for the year are summed up. And as they think everywhere and everything that in reindeer breeding from that moment the new year began. But for reindeer herding, this date is not a boundary, a boundary beyond which something new begins. Here, in a lonely hut, located far in the taiga, at a height blown by all the winds, everything also needs to go to work every day, seven days a week: look after the deer, look for them if they have gone far, and drive them back, protect them from wolves, and little more is needed. Everything also stretches a monotonous series winter days, and wait for any changes for a very long time, almost 3 months. For the New Year - only accounting, nothing new. Therefore, I dare not agree with the statements that this date is the beginning of the year of the reindeer breeder. I believe that the beginning of the year should be considered the time of the awakening of nature, the time of the beginning of calving in the deer herd.
January passes, February and March begins, when the deer go out into the sun, where the layer of snow becomes thinner and it is easier to get moss from under the snow. In March, preparations for the transition to spring pasture begin.
The difficult season in reindeer breeding, which lasts almost half a year, is coming to an end. 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. Shepherds choose sunny slopes, where the snow has already melted. Deer keep in a herd. In early April, the shepherds drive them to the 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 a constant change of job, and of course, reindeer herders deserve more attention and care than they really are.
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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