The Life of A Farm Moose
The more feasible technique, adopted first at Yaksha and later at Kostroma Moose Farm can be called "moose ranching". It is somewhat similar to the semi-domesticated reindeer husbandry pursued by the people of the tundra, or the sheep herding of the steppes.
During a large part of the year, the animals are allowed to roam free throughout the forest. They usually do not go too far, however, because they know the farm (or the winter camp, as the case may be) as the place to get their favorite foods and as a safe place to give birth to their young.
The Kostroma moose give birth to their young in April or May. A farm-born moose calf is taken from its mother within 2–3 hours after birth and is raised by people. It is first bottle-fed with a milk substitute, and later fed from a bucket. The resulting imprinting effect makes the growing animal attached to people; the steamed oats will remain one of its favorite foods for the rest of its life.
In the meantime, the mother moose is being milked by the farm's milkmaids; due to a similar imprinting mechanism, the cow moose will soon recognize them as her "substitute children". At this point, it can be released to the forest; it will come back to the farm every day to be milked during the rest of her lactation period (typically, until September or October).
In winter, the animals spend much time at the woodlots in the nearby forests where trees are being cut, feeding on the byproducts of timber operations. The abundant supply of forest foods, plus daily rations of oats and salted water keep them around the woodlot even without the fence.
It was found early in the course of the moose domestication research that some animals are more attached to the farm than others. Therefore, it is hoped that a multi-generational selection program will result in breeding a domesticated variety of the moose. However, in the conditions of the existing moose farms the prospects of artificial selection are made somewhat difficult by the fact that in the free-range conditions farm moose cows often mate with wild moose bulls.
Read more about this topic: Kostroma Moose Farm
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)