Guess what my neighbors have? Reindeer! I have been friends with one of their daughters  (Heather) since we moved here in 2000, shes about two years younger than me and is one of the only vegetarians I know IRL. Anyways, the family rescues reindeer! Reindeer I guess, are hybrids of elk and caribou, I think. They make this beautifully haunting sound that floats through the air at night. Sometimes it sounds like someone shrieking and sometimes, it sounds like whales singing. Anyways...you would think the extent of oppression deer would face is being hunted, but I guess there are whole businesses dedicated to their exploitation. All the deer at this farm were rescued from deer farms. At the deer farms the sick deer are left to die without medicine or food or even water (so they will die faster) If a pregnant deer has trouble during birth she is given a c-section and the calves are "discarded." When my friends family found out about that, they started rescuing the deer. Mostly it was 'trash babies" but a few were injured adults. The pictures are hard to make out 'cause I took them with my camera phone adn I dont know how to flip them. But do you see those two sitting off by themselves? I think thats the set of twins that recognize Heather as their mommy. I think the one standing up is Aphrodite. Heather makes this sound that sounds like "eeep*click" and the twins will separate themselves and run up to her. She bottle fed them in her kitchen for months. The deer are so friendly, they think they are people. if one gets out of the pen, they try to get back inside their kitchen!You can feed the deer apples and carrots through the fence. Heather and her family have taken some camping before (like when they are bottle feeding a baby.)

When the deer shed their antlers, my friends dad goes out and collects them from the ground and can sell them for medical uses, so it helps make up some of the loss caring for them. But they are also a 501C3, I think so they get donation and some kind of government salary because they also use the farm as a school for troubled young adults.

Anyways, I just thought you would like to see my deer friends!