The larvae can also cause disease in people. The fly’s larvae can penetrate the reindeers’ skin, causing harm to the milk, meat, and hides of domesticated herds. Warbles is a parasitic infection caused by the reindeer warble fly. The antiparasitic drug ivermectin is FDA-approved to treat and control warbles in reindeer.They are used as beasts of burden and farmed for their milk, meat, and hides. Reindeer are the only deer species to be widely domesticated.The herds generally follow food sources, traveling south up to 1,000 miles when food is hard to find in winter. In spring, they may form super-herds of 50,000 to 500,000 animals. Reindeer travel, feed, and rest together throughout the day in herds of 10 to a few hundred.An average adult reindeer eats 9 to 18 pounds of vegetation a day. In winter, they make do with lichen (also called reindeer moss) and fungi, scraping the snow away with their hooves to get it. Reindeer eat mosses, herbs, ferns, grasses, and the shoots and leaves of shrubs and trees, especially willow and birch.Reindeer mainly travel into the wind so they can pick up scents. Their good sense of smell helps the reindeer find food hidden under snow, locate danger, and recognize direction. Their specialized nose helps to warm incoming cold air before it enters their lungs, and it’s also an excellent sniffer. Reindeer are the only deer species to have hair completely covering their nose.The hairy hooves may look funny, but they give reindeer a good grip when walking on frozen ground, ice, mud, and snow. Reindeer are covered in hair from their nose to the bottom of their feet (hooves).Males drop their antlers in November, leaving them without antlers until the following spring, while females keep their antlers through the winter until their calves are born in May. Both sexes finish growing their antlers at the same time but shed them at different times of the year. Male reindeer begin to grow antlers in February and female reindeer in May. Unlike horns, antlers fall off and grow back larger each year.A male’s antlers can be up to 51 inches long, and a female’s antlers can reach 20 inches. Compared to their body size, reindeer have the largest and heaviest antlers of all living deer species. Both male and female reindeer grow antlers, while in most other deer species, only the males have antlers.In North America, the animals are called caribou if they are wild and reindeer if they are domesticated. Reindeer and caribou are the same animal ( Rangifer tarandus) and are a member of the deer family.CVM’s Office of Minor Use and Minor Species Animal Drug Development (OMUMS for short) works hard to make sure safe and effective drugs are available for minor species, like Santa’s reindeer (or are they caribou?).
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