Few people today know much about the breeding of the Siberian red deer, or maral. However, in the Altai Mountains, where the terrain is not suitable for developing traditional agriculture, maral breeding is a flourishing industry. In fact, during the crisis-ridden 1990s, it became the driver of the regional economy bringing in the money from exports of velvet antlers (maral antlers in a pre-ossified stage).
Most of the velvet antler preserves, used in the manufacture of a variety of medications, go to South Korea. However, current international prices for velvet antlers are low, which has slowed the industry’s growth.
However, the Altai maral breeders are not discouraged. A variety of medications sold on the domestic market are being developed in partnership with research centers and pharmaceutical companies. In addition, health tourism is on the rise, and people from all over the world go to the Altai Region to get access to fresh products. Therapeutic baths, for instance, are booked up 12 months in advance.
Maral breeding
Maral is a subspecies of a large deer inhabiting the mountainous and foothill taiga. It is believed that the antlers and blood of these animals have unique healing properties. In the 19th century, in pursuit of expensive velvet antlers, poachers nearly wiped out the entire maral population. Maral farms, the first of which appeared in Altai in the late 19th century, were built to save the species.
The Altai Republic has about 60% of Russia’s maral stag population.
“We keep red deer in parks, where they roam free. They are not domesticated, but they are not quite wild, either. We have fenced off 3,000 hectares in the mountains for them. This area is divided into sections we call yards,” says Alexander Klepikov, team leader at Nizhny Uimon, one of the region’s largest farms.
That is done to prevent animals of different ages from mixing and to control the reproduction process.
However, such breeding conditions create certain difficulties. Animals are faced with many dangers, such as golden eagles attacking newborn calves. To protect the herd, the rangers have to shoot them, even though these birds are on the list of endangered species. Wolves, and occasionally bears, make their way through fences as well.
“We bought guns for our rangers. Even though golden eagles are endangered species they are a major threat for newborn calves. They watch the area closely, and once a calf is born they swoop down and make a kill. There are swarms of them in the sky as if they know what’s about to happen,” Alexander Klepikov says.
On average, stags live eight to nine years and have their antlers sawn off seven times over the course of their lifetime beginning at age two. Stags with larger antlers (over 10 kilograms) are selected for breeding. The breeding work focuses on improving the quality of velvet antlers.
Therapeutic preserves
The foreman told us that antlers are sawn off once a year from late May to early July, when they’ve grown big enough but have not yet ossified. The animal is run through a corridor into a special snare where handlers immobilize the animal’s head, blindfold it and saw off the antlers in a matter of several seconds. They then put on a coagulating powder and clay on the wound to stop the bleeding.
After they’ve been sawn off, the antlers are weighed, hung to cool and after a while put in a water tank and boiled.
“Five to six men sit around a tank with boiling water,” Mr. Klepikov says. “They put on gloves, take antlers by the prongs and sink them into boiling water for three minutes. Then, they pull them out and let them dry for three minutes. Then they repeat the boiling-drying routine for two more minutes each. The process is finished by several one-minute boiling-drying cycles depending on the antlers’ size.”
They cook velvet antlers for two days and on the third day the antlers are placed in a sauna-like heat room where the temperature is initially set at 80 degrees Celsius or higher. The heat treatment also takes several phases and the temperature is gradually brought down to 60-70 degrees Celsius resulting in what’s known as preserved velvet antlers.
“That’s how they expel moisture from them,” he says. “Antlers lose about 64% of their initial weight in the process. After that, they are sold and processed. Locals, for example, use them to make an alcohol-based velvet antler tincture known as pantocrine.”
Miraculous properties and types of treatment
Not far from the boiling tank, there are rooms where visitors can take an antler bath. Famous throughout the world, velvet antler baths have very strong healing properties. Visitors from Russia and abroad come here for the baths. Each maral farm receives about 150 antler bath aficionados every six weeks.
“Doctors say these baths are potent,” Klepikov says. “What exactly makes them potent remains to be explained. Men from St. Petersburg say that the water has tonic, stimulating and even anti-aging effects. People feel lighter after these baths.”
Maral blood is also used to prepare therapeutic products. Blood is taken from the animal's jugular vein right before sawing off its antlers. It is believed that blood receives its healing properties after it goes through the growing antlers and becomes almost a cure-all medicine.
Drinking fresh maral blood or taking a bath with fresh blood is said to have a particularly strong healing effect. Blood used as a medication preserves its beneficial properties for only two hours after it’s been drawn from the animal’s body, so it must be consumed or processed quickly.
Although the consumption of fresh blood is view as a kind of a savage practice nowadays, many people are willing to do it to boost their health.
“Maral blood and preparations based on it have adaptogenic properties allowing the human body to adapt to any changes and withstand daily stresses,” says Alexander Shebalin, technical director of the Moscow Anti-Doping Medical Center and author of the maral blood vacuum processing method. “In particular, a bath with maral blood removes lactic acid from the body, patients feel a surge of energy and the body is in fact rejuvenated.”
He was the first person in Russia to take up this business over 20 years ago. Currently, Shebalin produces the source material – dried blood – in Altai for further manufacturing of medications. It is dried using special patented equipment that Alexander and his colleagues have developed themselves.
He says that the preparations are used in high performance sports as well. According to Shebalin, non-doping medications are now being made for athletes. His clients include famous tennis players, boxers, hockey players, skiers, football players and other athletes.
The researcher also says that preparations obtained from maral blood can be used not only for preventing diseases and stimulating body functions, but also for treating many serious diseases. For example, the maral blood-based gel is used in treating psoriasis.
“Since these drugs have adaptogenic properties,” he says, “they significantly boost the human immune system and reduce the risks of developing diseases such as cancer.”
In addition, Shebalin says that these products help combat chronic fatigue, improve sexual function and treat allergies, including in children. Gels, say its developers, have a regenerating effect, can help get rid of cellulite and speed up the healing of hematomas.
Just as with other medications, patients should consult a doctor before starting the treatment program.
Expert opinion
“Doctors say that carbon-13 isotope is released during the cooking of antlers,” says Alexei Nepriyatel, deputy director of the National Medical Research Institute for Velvet Antlers Production based in Barnaul. “When a patient takes an antler bath, the isotope penetrates the skin and subcutaneous tissue reaching the body’s cells and thus improving the recovery processes. In addition, when patients take velvet antler baths with maral blood, lipoproteins in deer blood go through the skin and penetrate bone cells affecting the bone marrow, which is in charge of the immune system, the nervous system and the musculoskeletal system. All of this helps build healthier bodies.”
He also said that velvet antler baths were becoming increasingly popular, and some farms have these procedures fully booked for the next season.
“July is the best month for taking antler baths, Nepriyatel says, “because antlers are extremely rich in micronutrients and hormones during this period and such baths have a huge biostimulating effect.”
He says that antler baths are recommended for people suffering from obesity and skin problems. In addition, childless couples and people with injuries often come to Altai.
“They do not fully recover after these baths, but they can see noticeable improvements in their health,” the researcher says.
Korean doctors, he said, believe that all people regardless of their condition should undergo a velvet antler treatment once a year.
While acknowledging the beneficial effect of antler baths on the human body, Nepriyatel is highly sceptical of these products’ ability to prevent cancer.
“Physicians don’t usually prescribe antler products to patients with cancer,” he says, “because such products can spontaneously trigger the growth of cancer cells. Therefore, it’s a double-edged sword, and there’s no scientific evidence confirming or refuting antlers’ cancer-fighting properties.
Maral business
Maral farms in Altai are expected to saw off 100-105 metric tons of raw antlers and prepare 38 metric tons of preserved antlers this year. Traditionally, up to 95% of them will go to South Korea, the country that first started treating humans with velvet antler-based products.
“The Chinese often buy maral antlers to resell them to Koreans,” says Valery Repnikov, the director of Altaipharm that engages in exporting preserved antlers. “A portion of the product is exported to America, particularly Los Angeles with its large Korean communities.”
He said that he used to sell antlers at a price of $1,000 per kilogram back in 1995. However, after the East Asian crisis in 1997, prices for these products fell four times.
Ironically, the financial crisis of 1998 saved the industry. “Dollar prices fell four times over, whereas ruble prices fell six times over; therefore, ruble prices ended up growing by 50%. This is how the industry managed to survive,” he said, adding that deer breeding literally saved the local agriculture sector.
“Since the 1990s, the profitability of maral farms has been around 700%-800%, which helped all the other industries in the republic survive,” Repnikov said.
In the 2000s, the situation turned around and international price growth for velvet antlers almost came to a standstill because of the global crisis. “The price fluctuates from $200 to $350 (per one kg) depending on the quality. However, the cost of production has increased so much over the past years that the profitability of maral farms does not exceed 10-15% now,” he says.
He believes that prices must reach $450-$500 within the next year or two, otherwise it will be very difficult to keep the maral breeding industry alive. It is already being subsidized, and approximately 36.5 million rubles from the federal and republican budgets will go to support the industry this year alone.
“Maral farms are not growing at all,” says Alexander Yermilov, the director of a maral farm, “since expanding them would require a profit margin of at least 30%. Otherwise, we will continue to need subsidies, but subsidizing cannot go on forever. There are concerns that managers at maral farms may at some point decide that breeding red deer for meat is a more lucrative proposition.”
Repnikov believes that Russian buyers are the only hope left in the industry, because they can compete with foreign consumers and thus stimulate price growth on international markets.
In addition to preserved antlers, the Russian market uses frozen ones, for example, at the North Caucasus Belokurikha resorts, where they use frozen antlers in therapeutic baths. They also started manufacturing dietary supplements using velvet antlers in combination with honey and endemic Altai plants, such as red and golden maral roots.
