Santa’s steeds

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, December 19th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Well, Christmas Eve is just 6 days away, so if your family tradition includes leaving cookies for Santa and carrots for his reindeer? You might want to rethink the reindeer snack.

EICHER: WORLD reporter Jenny Rough recently went to a reindeer farm to learn more about them. And it turns out, there are a few other things about reindeer you might not know.

JENNY ROUGH: Pauline Broe and her husband, John, love to watch the reindeer play. Especially in winter.

PAULINE BROE: They’ll lay right out there in the snow, and you’ll see a puff of snow and some antlers sticking out.

The Broes take care of four reindeer on their family farm: Dasher, Prancer, Cupid and … Aurora?

PAULINE: Well, her name is Aurora Vixen. So she’s Aurora, but at Christmastime she’ll be Vixen. It’s her middle name.

Aurora Vixen is a baby. The Broes got her just the other week from Alaska. She flew to their farm on a FedEx plane.

PAULINE: You’re going to be able to meet her and see her. So that’s pretty exciting.

Pauline is about to take a group of 25 kids and parents to meet the reindeer. The crew came to the Broes’ farm for an annual holiday gathering.

LITTLE GIRL: I want to see the baby.

PAULINE: You’re gonna see the baby!

The Broes don’t live at the North Pole. They live in Vermont.

Reindeer are originally from Scandinavia. They’re related to caribou, but reindeer are smaller and stouter.

Cartoon reindeer tend to have narrow snouts and pointy noses. Not so in real life. Reindeer noses are big, like a cow’s. And extremely furry.

PAULINE: So they also grow a very thick winter coat. There are actually 12,000 hairs per square inch.

Fur on their noses down to their feet.

PAULINE: They have no skin showing, so they’re never going to get frostbite.

The Broes began raising reindeer 15 years ago, after reading an article about another reindeer farmer.

PAULINE: And I was totally enchanted. And I thought, “Oh my gosh, that could be me!”

Pauline says only a couple hundred people in the United States have reindeer. Contrast that with 65 million U.S. dog owners.

Reindeer can be expensive. And they’re subject to tough state regulations because the animals are prone to chronic wasting disease, a fatal illness.

Before Pauline opens the barn door that leads to the pasture, she passes around a set of real antlers.

PAULINE: So as soon as a baby reindeer is born, they start to grow antlers. The boys and the girls have antlers.

A reindeer’s freshly grown antlers are covered in soft velvet. Eventually, the reindeers rub the velvet off, leaving hard antlers. Before long, they shed those too.

PAULINE: In the spring, their antlers fall off. How many of you guys have lost teeth? I bet you lost teeth.

LITTLE GIRL: I lose teeth!

PAULINE: And it doesn’t really hurt when you lose your teeth.

One-year-old reindeer antlers are small.

PAULINE: These are Prancer’s little baby antlers. Aren’t they so cute?

LITTLE GIRL: Yeah.

The next year, a little bigger.

PAULINE: And this is when she was two years old. Up through her life. And if you look you can see that growth pattern every year.

As unique as a human fingerprint.

Finally, the big moment arrives.

PAULINE: We’re gonna go in!

LITTLE BOY: I’ve never seen a donkey!

PAULINE: You’ve never seen—have you ever seen a reindeer?

LITTLE BOY 2: I’ve never seen a donkey or a reindeer either.

LITTLE BOY: I’ve never seen either. Or a zebra.

That day at the farm, it’s cold, but not snowing. A steady wet rain...

SOUND: [Walking in mud]

… means the pasture is very, very mucky.

PAULINE: So remember, it is muddy. Everybody has boots?

Baby Aurora Vixen is shy and skittish.

PAULINE: I’m going to give you guys each an apple slice. Two at a time. See if she’ll come over and eat an apple slice from you.

No, not even the apple slices entice her to come near the crowd. But the other reindeer are friendly.

PAULINE: So on this side, we have Cupid and Dasher.

The Broes don’t recommend feeding reindeer carrots because reindeer don’t have upper front teeth. Or incisors. Here’s John Broe:

JOHN BROE: Reindeer have little tiny bottom teeth. They’re not made for chomping stuff. They’re made for grasses and up on the tundra, the tundra area.

If you really want to capture a reindeer’s heart:

PAULINE: So Prancer’s favorite treat is white bread. So we’ll tell children, leave out a slice of white bread. They like white bread.

And you know that famous song about reindeer?

MUSIC: Up on the housetop, click, click, click. Down through the chimney with good Saint Nick.

When reindeer walk, their hooves really do click, click, click. Here’s John again:

JOHN: And it’s because they have a tendon right here in their ankle joint. And every step they take, that tendon slips off the bone and goes, snap, snap, snap, snap.

God made reindeer hooves to click, click, click on purpose.

JOHN: So in blizzard conditions where reindeer can’t even see, the herd can stay together through the clicking.

They listen for one another and can find each other even when blinded by snow.

As much as the Broes love their reindeer, they love even more how happy it makes the kids.

PAULINE: Kids love to come here. If there’s a kid at school having a bad day. I can turn that kid around by saying, “Guess what Prancer did today?” You can turn any kid around with a story about an animal.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Jenny Rough in West Charleston, Vermont.

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