Thursday, May 28, 2015

Christy Bros. Circus #9


Posted by Buckles at 5/28/2015 06:40:00 AM

9 comments:

Bob Cline said...

I've seen the picture of these reindeer standing beside the coaches before but this is the first time I saw them hitched up to the sleigh.

Bob

28 May, 2015 07:01
JIM ELLIOTT said...

Bob, It was Christmas Eve Day and they were getting ready for their Annual Trek!

28 May, 2015 08:48
Ole Whitey said...

Jim: I know a couple whose little niece thinks I am Santa Claus. They brought her over here once and the first thing she said was, "Where are your elves?"

28 May, 2015 11:02
Jim Alexander said...

These appear to be male elk playing the role of reindeer. Reindeer or caribou are smaller and some have been at least semi-domesticated and used by the native peoples of the north. Transporting adult elk with full racks is a pretty impressive feat.

28 May, 2015 13:15
Ole Whitey said...

Jim: I had an uncle who was an elk hunter. He did this in Wyoming. They would ride horseback as high as they could to find the biggest elk. He had two elk heads mounted and they were too big to hang in the house so he had to hang them in the connected garage which had a very high ceiling.

When he retired and moved to the Florida Keys, he gave both of these to an historic old home here in Nashville- Belmont Mansion. Several years later Mary Jane and I took the tour thru this old house and in one room was one of the elk heads. I asked the tour guide if she knew where the head came from and she did not. I told her the story and she said she would add that to her lecture as she took groups thru the house.

And when you get as old as I am you can spell through as "thru" and not worry about being caught.

28 May, 2015 13:59
Bob Momyer said...

At a recent sportsman's show there were some live trophy bucks on show along with a bull elk. I got talking with the owner who told me that with deer and elk when the antlers have reached maturity, the animal is castrated so the antlers are not dropped. Of course if the antler is broken it will not be shed and regrown so a great deal of care is used in transporting.

28 May, 2015 14:07
Dick Flint said...

Wasn't there a discussion quite a number of years ago on this blog about trained elk? We needed this photo back then!

28 May, 2015 20:00
Jim Alexander said...

I recall Pat White commenting on a young moose she had Carson and Barnes. The animal was quite manageable but obtaining browse was a problem. (Stories of Smokey getting hay for Charlie in Mexico.) Also somewhere on U-Tube I saw a European, probably Russian, show with an exotic animal act that had red deer (look like small elk). They worked at liberty, didn't do much but they also didn't jump into the seats.

29 May, 2015 11:36
Richard Reynolds said...


Male American elk (or more correctly "Wapiti")can be very aggressive. I once had one lunge at me in the Birmingham zoo from the other side of the fence separating us. He must have been in the rut. Interestingly, in Europe the moose is called an elk. I had often wondered how Christy handled these males when in rut. Bob Momyer gave the answer above. That explains how they had antlers all season long.

29 May, 2015 16:14

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