William Quick, age 13, of Dubuque, Iowa, for his question:
HOW LARGE DOES THE REINDEER BECOME?
Reindeer is the common deer of Europe and Asia that is closely related to the North American caribou. The male or stag is about six feet long and stands about four feet high at the shoulders. The female or doe is a bit smaller.
The Lapps and the people who live in northern Siberia depend for their existence on the reindeer. They domesticated the animal hundreds of years ago and to this day find the reindeer vital to their way of living. Many people keep small herds for their family's use.
Reindeer are used to pull sledges and to carry cargo. They furnish skin for clothing, tents and harnesses. The flesh and milk provide food while the bones and antlers are carved into tools.
Because of the reindeer's ability to thrive in harsh climates, a number of herds were taken to Alaska in 1889. The reindeer did so well that today they number in the hundreds of thousands. Reindeer meat, according to some experts, is said to have such a delicious flavor it could promote the growth of a whole new line of food.
Reindeer and their American caribou relatives are the only deer in which both males and females have wide spreading branched antlers.
The hoofs of the reindeer spread out under pressure and keep the animals from sinking in snow or soft ground. There's never a problem in swampy areas or over snow covered fields.
Reindeer have great endurance and remarkable speed, despite the fact that they have a shuffling, sliding gait.
As protection against the very cold weather of the North, reindeer have a thick skin and two coats of hair. The outer coat is long and coarse while the under coat is fine and woolly.
Reindeer are dark brown in summer and change to a lighter shade of brown in the winter. Around the neck is a collar of long hair, whitish tan in color, which hangs down like a mane.
Domesticated reindeer, of course, are installed in warm barns or tents in winter. In the wilds, however, reindeer move in great herds to the seashore in autumn where they eat seaweed. In winter they migrate once more to the hilly country of the interior.
In the summer, wild reindeer feed in grassy inland valleys. In the winter, the animals feed on a kind of lichen known as reindeer moss. In order to reach this moss, the animals must often dig through deep snow drifts. They scrape away the snow with their broad hoofs to find the buried lichen.
Domesticated reindeer can pull sledges over the snow at the rate of 15 miles an hour. And they can travel with loads of up to 300 pounds for many hours at a time.
Reindeer meat is smoked, jerked and canned.