Deer farm at top of its game

By Karen Donato
Staff Writer
    The Shakaree Deer Farm in New Limerick is producing the largest antlered Red Stags available to the farming and hunting industry in North America. New techniques and refining bloodlines has led the red deer farm to the top of its game.
HEAD AND ANTLERS ABOVE THE REST — Gary Dwyer, along with Mark Drew, farm manager, maintains a herd of nearly 1,000 red deer on 500 acres of land in New Liimerick. After nearly 15 years in industry, Shakaree Deer Farm is considered to be the elite breeding facility for red deer in the United States.
    Since the mid-1990s Gary L. Dwyer, owner of the Shakaree Deer Farm has researched the bloodlines of the red deer and improved his herd tremendously, through artificial insemination and embryo transfer. His farm is now considered to be the elite breeding facility for red deer in the United States.    
    It’s been more than 15 years since Dwyer purchased the former Chauncey Cunliffe farm on the French Road in New Limerick. He had been looking for a place to raise red deer, and this farm has become the perfect place.
    The most highly bred red deer were being raised in New Zealand, but they could not be directly acquired here in Maine. The United States prohibits the importation of live deer from any country other than Canada, so Dwyer purchased the first deer from our northern neighbor.
    He, along with Mark Drew, farm manager, maintains a herd of nearly 1,000 animals on 500 acres of land.
Drew is in charge of the management of the breeding process and the entire farm operation. Semen and embryos are imported from other countries. The farm is currently utilizing the bloodlines of deer from Croatia, Germany, England, and New Zealand with the pure English deer producing the largest antlers with the most points. One of the best bloodlines in the world is the Furzeland bloodline, named for an English park.
    This past month, embryologist, Dr. Claire Plante, was flown in from Ontario to artificially inseminate 110 of Shakaree’s 300 elite breeding females. This took between six and seven hours. Prior to the actual insemination, a technical procedure was used to encourage the hinds to come into heat. This entails extreme in depth planning and execution. Drew must stagger the seeding of the hinds so that they do not come into heat at the same time. Precise timing is the key to the success rate. Plante had high praise for Drew’s success in readying the herd. Once the insemination was completed, gestation will take 233 days. Red deer females produce only one offspring at a time. Prior insemination techniques resulted in a 45 percent success rate — this new procedure, which is less invasive guarantees a 75-80 percent success rate. The spring fawning is now anticipated with great excitement.
    The genetic gains that have been made prior to this most recent project are very notable. In 1993 a mature eight to ten year old stag that produced 16-20 points with 12 pounds of antler was considered exceptional, today the farm has deer as young as three years old producing 50 points, 30 pounds of antlers, and scoring over 435 inches of antlers.
    The deer thrive on Maine’s climate and pastureland. The cooler climate triggers the stags to produce more fat reserves, which in turn help them grow larger antlers in the spring and that is what the consumers want. Therefore, the northern deer sport larger racks than their southern counterparts. Thus, another reason for the success of Dwyer’s Aroostook County herd. The antlers are what drive the market, and Shakaree has several farms and hunting businesses in Maine that consistently purchase deer from them, but the majority of live sales are out of state with Texas and Missouri purchasing the most.
     In May and June the antlers begin to form on the adult male deer. The blood supply, which carries the necessary components to form the antlers, runs outside the emerging appendage and is contained in a highly specialized membrane that is covered with a soft, fuzzy material known as velvet. They are soft to touch and give off a feel of lanolin. Deer velvet antler is unique in advanced mammals. Both male and female hormones are found in it, including factor 1(IGF-1), which promotes rapid growth of cartilage and bone. Antlers are the only body appendage in an advanced mammal that can regenerate year after year. Deer velvet contains high amounts of amino acids, proteins, fats, and numerous electrolytes including phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, calcium, magnesium, sodium, silicon, chlorine, iron, zinc, and copper. It has been used to treat arthritis, reverse atherosclerosis and improve circulation, as well as to reduce fatal heart attacks and strokes.    
    If the rack is not removed during the velvet phase, it begins to calcify and becomes cartilage. At this time it can be used as a supplement for joint health and bone maintenance. It has also been used to fight against cancer cell formation. There is no loss of life to the deer from harvesting the antlers, unlike that of cattle or shark cartilage. (Portions of the above information is referenced in a publication by James Devlin, Ph.D., N.D., entitled “Red Deer Velvet Antler: A Powerful Traditional Chinese Medicinal Tonic”).
    Dwyer has the velvet antler dried and encapsulated at a Mapleton processor. It is then marketed in a capsule form to health stores or sold to private individuals throughout the country. The hard antlers are sold to the Maine Antler Design Company in Unity and a variety of other companies throughout the United States. Craftsman use the antlers to make chandeliers, furniture, knives and handcrafted pens.
Another product marketed by the Shakaree Farm is beef sticks that are low fat, high protein and are sold nationwide. They can be purchased in many local stores.
    In 1999 the United States began holding antler competitions for Canada, Mexico and the United States. Shakaree Deer Farm has won first place in every antler competition since. Their barn is filled with a large collection of trophies and plaques that have been won on both the regional and national level. These new and improved bloodlines have increased the size of the antlers dramatically. One of the five English stags that were used in this recent breeding program has just produced the new world antler score of 677 inches, which means if you were to measure every point he grew, there would be more than 56 feet of antler in a 100 day period and weighing nearly 50 pounds.
    As in any competition there are certain criteria or standards that must be met. The Safari Club International is the most recognized organization for record keeping and the most used scoring system in the world. Their scoring system ranks the largest antlers. The SCI score proves a strong breeding program. A two-year-old stag has to be in the low 300 SCI minimums; a three-year-old stag has to score nearly 400 SCI, and four-year-old stags must be well into the 400 SCI range.
    The Safari Club International organization strives to protect the freedom to hunt and promotes wildlife conservation worldwide.
    When Dwyer first established his farm he had a seasoned employee from New Zealand that came with a lot of experience. Shortly after the farm was in operation Drew joined him and now is the person in charge. He said, “Mark is a natural and is ranked as a premier authority on raising red deer in the United States. There is not much that he doesn’t know.”
    He added, “This is not a 9-to-5 job. At times, especially during this insemination process it is all times of the day and night. Timing is key.”
    Dwyer says that the process of bringing the hinds into heat doesn’t just happen. It begins months before with proper feeding, to be just the right weight before the insemination. The hinds need to be in a calm environment for about 55 hours prior to the process. He feels very fortunate to have Drew not only managing this elite group of deer, but also living on the property.
    Dave McQueen assists Drew on the farm, and two additional employees to do the repair work for the buildings and fences.
    Shakaree Deer Farm is the only red deer farm in Maine licensed to ship deer outside of the state and Dwyer credits the work Drew has done for this designation, as well as keeping all state and federal regulations in place to market their deer.
    Dwyer is a busy man himself, owning the local Elm Tree Diner, Cait Enterprises, and Chute Chemical Company. He is a graduate of Ricker Classical Institute and completed his degree from Ricker College after returning from Korea. He and his wife Hope have three grown sons, Bill, Doug and Joe and one granddaughter. Bill and Doug, both work in the chemical businesses with their father, while Joe lives and works in New York City.
    The Shakaree Red Deer Farm hosts school field trips and visitors by appointment. For more information visit the website: www.shakareedeerfarm.com