Portland Press Herald, June 27, 1995
Velvet Harvest

By SELBY FRAME
Staff Writer

SCARBOROUGH - Fred Bayley lifts the lid on a giant freezer in the garage of his palatial Scarborough home. Inside, there is a bramble of antlers - dozens of them, their fuzzy brown tines interlocked, their cut stumps bright red.

When he sells them to a Maine antler processing company later this month, they'll be worth over $75,000.

His herd of 500 red deer and elk, one of the largest of the 35 or so deer and elk farms in Maine, is attracting interest from corners as far-flung as Vermont dairy farms and Chinese pharmaceutical companies.

And he owes it all to antlers.

"It sounds hokey, but it isn't," says Bayley, 57, who is also a commercial fisherman and owner of Bayley's Camping Resort. Fingering the furry tines of a prize elk bull's antlers, he explains: "Antler velvet is an Oriental medicine, and it actually works."

Deer farming is a relatively new addition to Maine agricultural mix. It was introduced here in 1989, following the lead of Canadian deer farmers in New Brunswick. There are now an estimated 1,000 deer farmers in the United States.

Originally viewed as an alternative to dairy and beef farming, red and fallow deer were raised by Maine farmers for venison. The animals require lower maintenance than do cattle and are moderate consumers (Approximately one acre is needed for four deer). Nearly two-thirds of the animal can be marketed for consumption.

But Bayley and other Maine deer farmers soon discovered there were other markets to be culled - especially the antler velvet trade.

Long considered a staple of traditional Asian medicines, deer antler velvet is coveted by pharmaceutical companies in Korea, China and Taiwan, which send purchasing emissaries to deer farms around the world.

Velvet is the vitamin-rich early growth of the antlers, which deer and elk grow - and shed - annually.

An ancient symbol of virility, deer antlers have been used in Asian medicines for over 2,000 years as purported cures for tumors, aids for sexual impotence, medication for low blood pressure, blood cleansers and relief for everything from arthritis to PMS to gout.

Bayley said he began to build up his velveting stock several years ago, when the price of velvet began rising from $55 a pound to nearly $100. He estimates some 60 percent of his farm earning this year will come from the velvet harvest.

Red deer yield an average of six to eight pounds of velvet annually, and prime elk bulls can yield as much as 30 pounds each year. With current antler prices averaging $65 to $80 per pound, a large herd can produce a significant yield.

"With the velvet market up, there's no need to slaughter," says Bayley's farm manager Rick Jackson. "Velvet is a renewable resource. And with our technology in medicine, we're able to harvest the antler without harming the animal."

Getting it over quickly
Jackson does the velvet cutting - or harvesting - himself. In late spring, the animals are led into a padded gate, where they're immobilized by a cushioned, two-sided contraption called a "squeeze."

Aided by two or three farm hands, Jackson gives the animals an anesthetic shot in the pedicle area under the antlers, which are in an early rubbery stage. He then removes the antlers with a handsaw. The whole procedure takes less than 10 minutes.

"I don't know if they know what's coming, but we get it over with quick," says Jackson.

A former political consultant who owns a small farm in Oxford, Jackson turned to deer farming full-time this March when Bayley invited him on as farm manager. His main concern now is attending to the young fawns. Nearly 100 fawns have been born over the past few weeks and another 100 are expected.

A red deer fawn born the day before has lost his mother at birth and Jackson stops in every few hours to bottle feed him.

"Aw, he's so hungry he's crazy, yes," he coos, as the fawn nudges his hands hungrily. "There you go," he slips the bottle into its mouth, and the fawn settles back for a suck, collapsing on spindly hind legs.

Jackson says that virtually anyone can raise a few domestic deer, if they have enough land for grazing and a few seven-foot fences.

State regulatory controls are minimal as well - just one visit from Maine Department of Agriculture inspectors annually. Venison-producing farms are subject to USDA rules and inspections.

"It's much smaller than the other meat industries," notes David Averill, of the Maine Department of Agriculture's production development office. "It's still developing. But I think it has a lot of potential here in Maine because we do have a lot of land that can be used for foraging."

Apparently a lot of other people agree. Bayley makes nearly half his farm earnings on breeding stock, selling deer and elk to people throughout New England.

Jackson says most buyers are professional people who want to have a small her as a sideline to their day jobs. "This industry is so new, it's difficult to convince people to take the plunge," he says. "You have to have the hard numbers and give them some time to think about it."

"This is going to allow people to have animals and make money without killing animals," adds Bayley.

The animals are basically gentle, though mature deer or elk males can become aggressive during the autumn rut. Mature red deer stags reach about 600 pounds and elk bulls weight in at roughly 1,400 pounds at maturity.

Bayley is crossbreeding his red deer females, or hinds, with elk bulls, to produce a variety called F1s. They are darker and larger than red deer, produce more velvet, but are still of manageable size.

He purchases elk sires from Canadian breeders at about $14,000 a pop.

The buyers will find you
Venison sales for Bayley are minimal at present, though the market potential is there, he says. Jackson says they have about 14 venison customers, all of them non-commercial buyers who purchase eight to 10 pounds for family consumption. Bayley charges between $4.50 and $8 per pound, according to the cut.

But, currently, it's the antler market that interests most Maine deer farmers.

At Shakaree Farm in Houlton, the largest deer farm in the state, this year's velvet harvest is drawing international interest. Farm manager Mark Drew says he was approached by two velvet purchasers from Taiwan last month - without even advertising.

"The Asians will find you when you have this many deer," said Drew. "They were reading an old Down East magazine and there was a story about us in there a few years ago."

Like Fred Bayley, Drew opted to sell most of his velvet to a Maine buyer, Darrell "Butch" Tobin of Mapleton.

Last year, Tobin purchased nearly a ton of velvet from growers in Maine and around the country. He dried it, ground it into a powder and packaged it into capsules. Tobin's Royal Stag Velvet Antler capsules retail for about $1 for a 30-capsule bottle.

He sells most of his powdered antler capsules to Chinese wholesalers in and around New York City and to a handful of health food stores.

"Hopefully we'll be the buyer for the U.S. in a short period of time," says Tobin. "The pharmaceutical people and the farmers themselves have told me to brace my feet. We might not be worth millions this year, but within the next two years it will be."

While the medicinal effects of antler velvet haven't been scientifically proven in the West, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has reported that it "causes no harm." Drug assessment trials are under way in New Zealand, Russia and Canada.

Regardless of the viability of an American antler velvet market, Jackson says deer farming make broad business sense.

"It's got great marketing potential," he says. "With beef you've got one market. With this, you've got three markets at least and whatever else you can be creative about."

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