Kostroma Moose Farm - The Kostroma Farm

The Kostroma Farm

Kostroma Moose Farm, established in 1963 under the aegis of Kostroma Oblast Agricultural Research Station (Костромская государственная областная сельскохозяйственная опытная станция), where the free-range moose ranching techniques described above are used. A Moose Husbandry Laboratory was created at the research station to coordinate research work conducted at the farm, both by the Kostroma zoologists and by researchers from Moscow and elsewhere.

Unfortunately, in 1985, the Moose Husbandry Laboratory was transferred from the Kostroma Agriculture Research Station to the Kostroma Forestry Research Station, while the moose farm was transferred to the Kostroma Forestry Enterprise (Костромской лесхоз); due to budgetary cuts, the Moose Husbandry Laboratory was closed altogether in 1992. In these conditions, the farm continued to operate more like a petting zoo than a research facility.

It was not until January 2002 that the Moose Husbandry Laboratory was re-created, its parent organization now being called Kostroma Agricultural Research Institute. In 2005, Kostroma Moose Farm was transferred from the forestry enterprise to the Kostroma Oblast Natural Resources Committee. This allowed resumption of the research work on the farm.

The main lines of farm's business are:

• Milk production. The farm's livestock includes around 10-15 milk-producing moose cows. The milk, reported to be rich in vitamins and microelements and to be useful for the treatment of peptic ulcers, radiation lesions and some other conditions is supplied to the nearby Ivan Susanin Sanatorium.
• Harvesting antler velvet. A bull moose grows a new pair of antlers every summer. Similar to the maral farms in New Zealand and Siberia, moose antlers can be harvested while they are still soft and covered with velvet, which is used for the manufacture of certain pharmaceutical products.
• Tourist attraction / novelty value. Although, as at any responsible animal husbandry establishment, access to the farm is strictly controlled by the management, organized tourist groups can visit the facility on tours arranged through the Kostroma Tourism Bureau.
• Potentially, sales of farm-raised young animals to zoos and safari parks, wildlife reintroduction projects in areas that have lost their Alces populations, or to those who want to start new dairy moose farms.

Researchers involved with the project emphasize that although much has been learned about the moose biology, and the techniques for semi-domesticated moose husbandry have been developed, raising animals like this is a not an easy affair. In the interests of the animals themselves, one should not try to enter this business without appropriate expertise, good capitalization, and access to a suitable habitat.

In particular, one is advised not to try to start a moose farm for meat production: the meat output will not cover the costs of production (which could be ten times as high as those of beef production), and, besides, free-range moose are not stupid, and they will not be coming back to the farm where their kin are being slaughtered. A couple of operators in Yaroslavl and Nizhny Novgorod Oblasts went out of business trying to do this.

The farm maintains the database of all animals that have ever been brought to the farm or born there. As of 2006, it listed 842 moose that have lived on the farm during its history.

Over the first forty years of operation (1963–2003), 770 animals ended their stay at the farm in the following ways:

Over the years, the herd size varied from 4 (in 1965) to 67 (in 1978).

Over the period from 1972 to 1985 (when the milk production statistics are available), the number of milked moose cows on the farm increased from 3 to 16, the average number over the period being 11. Over those 13 years, 23,864 liters (around 6,000 gallons) of the milk had been produced.