A24-Lanonstar Farming, Saturday, April 11. IMS Feeding an elk. Seth Richards and Nicole Airman with Dalton, age 4, and Qulnten, age 16 months. (ContiniMd Iron Pag* A 1) County, and Delmont Sunderland of Hunting don. Richards started his elk Cum with an old truck, a tractor, 100 acres, and 10 bred cows. From these 10 cows he gained eight calves in the spring of 1996. Then he bought a bull. La ter in the fall of 1997 he purchased 13 more elk to bring his total to 40 animals. “One of the advantages of elk is that I can put three in the same space as one beef or dairy cow,” Richards says of his pastures and paddocks. Richards designed his own pie shaped paddocks with centralized handling facilities. With this type of design, Seth or Ni cole can feed and water several paddocks of animals efficiently. He has designed and redesigned round bale feeders, protective tree fences, and gravity-fed water systems redesigned in several cases, because these powerful 500- to 1,000-pound animals like to play rough. His feed trough is secured with log chains, and boards with wire to protect trees were replaced with Ix 6 rails built in a tri angular shape. To protect the bull elk’s velvet anSers, Richards built his round bale feeder for access from the top. The American Elk The Shawnee Indians called them wapiti, which means white rump. Arriving European settlers found herds throughout Pennsylvania. But by the early 1800 s, the elk had been pushed out of the southern comers of the state. The very last native Pennsylvania elk was re portedly killed in 1867 near the headwaters of the Clarion River. In the early 1900 s, the Pennsylvania Game Commission purchased 143 elk for $3O each from Yellowstone National Park and released them along with 22 from private game re serves and 10 from a wild South Dakota herd, into 10 central and northeastern Pennsylvania counties. The Game Commission conducted elk hunting seasons from 1923 until 1931 in which 98 bulls were killed. The Game Com mission believed that by the mid-19605, only SO to 100 elk remained, their survival hamp ered by brainworms and poaching. In the 19705, to aid the state’s failing elk herd, the Game Commission started creating open areas covered with clover, oats, birds foot trefoil, timothy hay, and other crops to draw animals away from agricultural jareas. Shifting the herd to a new territory helped de crease poaching and the elk’s accidental in gestion of the snails that cause brainworms. Pennsylvania’s herd today is estimated at be tween 350 and 400 animals. At the beginning of this year, the Game Commission trapped and transferred 16 elk from Elk County to Clinton County’s Sprout State Park and neighboring Elk and Moshan non State Forests, giving the elk a450-square mile forest range with few permanent human residents. The elk are wintered in paddocks to save the pastures for the grazing season. rT Force-3G I n • *e tic lit Elk Farming Alternate Ente
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