Mackinaw Valley Elk Farm focuses on breeding stock and antler markets

It’s morning. The fresh, crisp autumn air hints at the approaching winter. Gary and Judy Robenstein listen as the buglings of the majestic bull elk echo across the valley, a chorus of both enticement and challenge announcing the eternal commencement of the rut, and of the new life that will arrive with the spring.

But this National Geographic scene is not being played out in the wilderness of the Rocky Mountains or elsewhere in the untamed Great West. It is taking place right here in Illinois along the banks of the Mackinaw River near Congerville in southern Woodford County -- on the Robenstein’s Mackinaw Valley Elk Farm.

Robenstein started his elk operation in 1994. He had farmed his 330 acres and run about 50 head of cattle, along with owning and operating a locker plant in nearby Eureka. When he sold his locker plant, he was looking for something interesting and different to do. He previously had lived in Idaho and Washington and had seen and admired the elk herds. "I thought they were beautiful and graceful," he says.

He visited another elk producer in western Illinois and decided to get into the business. He started with a bull and two heifers. One of the heifers died within several months, but undeterred, Robenstein added six bred cows in 1995. He lost the first several calves born, but persevered and continued to build his herd. He placed much of his rolling farm into CRP, planting trees on 135 acres and fencing 35 acres for the elk.

After the sale of 17 elk earlier this summer to a producer near Memphis, Tennessee, the Robensteins’ herd numbers 47 adults and eight calves.

The business of sticks

There are a number of markets for elk, including the meat and hide, as well as selling trophy animals to commercial hunting operations. But the Robensteins raise their elk for two other markets – breeding stock and antlers.

Bulls can weigh upwards of 1,200 pounds, while cows average closer to 600 pounds. The breeding stock primarily is sold to other producers who wish to upgrade their herd genetics, and to individuals getting into the business, according to Robenstein. To continually improve his own herd’s genetics, Robenstein primarily employs artificial insemination (AI).

Like other agricultural producers, the Robensteins have seen substantial price erosion in their industry. The price for cows peaked in the late 1990s at between $8,000 to $10,000 per animal, but has dropped to between $1,500 to $2,000 per cow today.

Bulls comprise about half the Robenstein’s herd because only the bulls produce antlers. The antlers are harvested while they are in velvet, normally between 55 and 80 days after growth begins, depending on the particular bull, Robenstein tells.

"Elk antlers are the fastest growing bone known to man," Robenstein declares. "Some mature bulls can produce a set of antlers weighing 50 pounds within those 80 days," he elaborates.

The antlers in velvet are known as "sticks" in the industry, and their main market is Asia, particularly China and Korea, where they are used for medicinal purposes, he continues. "Different parts of the antler are rich in different minerals and are used to treat different ailments, or as a preventative medicine," Robenstein shares. There also remains the belief in many parts of Asia that the antler is an aphrodisiac.

The antler is sliced very thin – in China a slanted cut is preferred; in Korea a straight cut – and normally boiled in tea, which is then drunk. Several companies also market the antler in the US, according to Robenstein. Here it is ground and encapsulated. Both Gary and Judy say the capsules have brought them relief from their arthritis.

Perishable commodity

The antlers are harvested in May and June before any calcification into bone has begun. At that stage, they are mostly blood and tissue, and their removal is a surgical procedure. The animal is heavily sedated, a tourniquet is applied and the antler cut off. The Robensteins used a veterinarian for this procedure until they became skilled enough to do it themselves.

The antlers are perishable and must be frozen or freeze-dried until processed. The Robensteins keep their sticks in a chest freezer until marketed.

Robenstein currently serves as president of the Illinois Elk Producers Association, which has 34 members. Between 1,500 to 2,000 elk are being raised in the state, he estimates. There are similar elk producer associations in nearly every state, as well as a national association with about 1,600 members, according to Robenstein.

About half the Illinois association members market sticks. The past two years, most of these members have banded together to market the antlers collectively through the association, so Robenstein has been heavily involved in that process.

Last year, they drove a caravan of trucks with 20 chest freezers of antler to Michigan to sell to a buyer for the Asian market. They have sold between 1,300 to 1,800 pounds of antler in each of the two years.

Robenstein says the Asian buyers are tough bargainers and the price of each stick is negotiated individually, making it a long, tedious process. In the early 1990s, antler was selling for up to $110 per pound. But in the late 1990s, the Asian economy crashed, and with it antler prices, he reports. Last year, it brought as little as $15 per pound. This year, that price has rebounded to between $30 and $35 per pound, he states.

Disease threatens industry

Today, Illinois’ elk and white-tailed deer industries are facing an unprecedented threat in the form of chronic wasting disease (CWD). According to USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), CWD is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) of North American deer and elk. Scrapie and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) are other TSE’s. There is no known relationship between CWD and any other spongiform encephalopathy of animals or people.

CWD, as the name implies, is a neurological disease that results in chronic weight loss leading to death of the infected elk or deer. It was first recognized in 1967 in captive elk at a Colorado research facility. In the mid-1980s, it was detected in free-ranging deer and elk in contiguous portions of northeastern Colorado and southeastern Wyoming, and in 2001 was found in the adjacent southwestern corner of Nebraska, according to the APHIS information.

CWD also has been diagnosed in farmed elk herds in South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado, Oklahoma, Montana, Kansas and the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, APHIS reports. The epidemic in the ranched elk industry has wiped out dozens of ranchers in the US and Canada while inflicting more than $100 million in damages and cleanup costs, according to a recent article in the Denver Post.

Species that have been affected with CWD include Rocky Mountain elk, mule deer, white-tailed deer and black-tailed deer. Other ruminant species -- including wild ruminants and domestic cattle, sheep and goats -- have been housed in wildlife facilities in direct or indirect contact with CWD-affected deer and elk with no evidence of disease transmission, according to APHIS.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has said there is no scientific evidence that CWD can infect humans. For safety's sake, however, WHO has recommended no part of deer or elk that show evidence of CWD should be eaten by people.

What has galvanized the issue for Illinois elk and deer producers is the discovery in southern Wisconsin of three wild deer shot during the 2001 hunting season that tested positive for CWD. By late May of this year, 18 deer had tested positive and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) had implemented a controversial eradication program in a 361-square-mile area of Dane, Iowa and Sauk counties, according to a story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The report indicated the agency’s goal was "to try to kill nearly 15,000 deer in the eradication zone as quickly as possible in hopes of stopping the spread of the disease."

Although there has yet to be a documented case of CWD infecting humans, the deaths of three Wisconsin hunters from a related human illness has public health officials on edge, according to the Denver Post article.

Illinois takes action

In April of this year, a task force of key staff from the Illinois Departments of Agriculture and Natural Resources was formed to develop a plan to help prevent CWD from coming to Illinois. The plan is to address surveillance of wild deer and captive herds, import and export of deer and elk and a planned response to a potential CWD outbreak in Illinois.

"I want to emphasize that chronic wasting disease has not been found in Illinois at this point," said DNR Director Brent Manning. "But it has been found in nearby Wisconsin and we want to take all steps necessary to prevent the spread of the disease into Illinois."

"The Department of Agriculture will continue to work closely with DNR to monitor both captive and wild herds for chronic wasting disease," said Illinois Agriculture Director Joe Hampton. "This could affect not only sportsmen, but also a developing industry of farm-raised deer and elk grown for food."

As president of the Illinois Elk Producers Association, Gary Robenstein has been heavily involved in working with the task force to develop guidelines and new regulations. One of the task force’s first actions was the implementation of a 150-day emergency ban on importing elk or deer into the state.

Robenstein says Illinois elk herds already have been part of a surveillance program for three years in which they have been tested for TB and brucelosis. That surveillance program will now also include watching for CWD. As part of that, he continues, the brain tissue will be tested for any elk or deer that dies.

"The white-tailed deer producers in Illinois are going to be affected to a greater extent because they haven’t had a surveillance program in place prior to this time," he says.

Recent developments

Robenstein says another area of concern the task force has been reviewing is hunters bringing back deer or elk carcasses into Illinois that have been killed out of state. Since the time of the interview with Robenstein, the Illinois DNR filed an emergency rule to limit the importation of hunter-harvested deer and elk. The rule, filed July 30 and extending for 150 days while a permanent rule is formulated and adopted, also bans the feeding of wild deer and, in effect, extends the previous restriction on the importation of elk or deer into the state.

The rule, according to the DNR, "bans the importation of hunter-harvested deer and elk carcasses into Illinois, except for deboned meat, antlers, antlers attached to skull caps, hides, upper canine teeth and finished taxidermist mounts. Skull caps must be cleaned of all brain and muscle tissue."

In late June, the USDA and the U.S. Department of the Interior delivered to Congress a national plan for assisting states, federal agencies and tribes in controlling the threat to elk and deer from CWD. The plan details how federal agencies can assist states and help develop consensus-based approaches that states and industry may adopt to manage the disease.

Robenstein points out that no elk or deer in Illinois have tested positive for CWD, and that only a very small percentage of elk and deer tested nationally have been found to have the disease.

The Robensteins have been FCS operating loan clients for six years. Tom Davis in 1st FCS’ Eureka office is the Robensteins’ financial professional.

"The first time I went in to talk to Tom, I thought, ‘He won’t know anything about elk and give me a loan’," Robenstein quips. But Tom did his research and talked with another producer. He made the loan.

"1st FCS has been very helpful to us. We have been very satisfied," declares the producer.

In addition to their elk operation, the Robensteins also work several days each week at the Reel Livestock Center. Gary helps sort the animals for auction, while Judy manages the restaurant.

Despite the decline in market prices for both the elk and antler, the Robensteins still are happy to be in the business. They like the people they’ve met from all over the country. And they love the elk. "We enjoy the animals and their different personalities. Sometimes they are like a bunch of kids out there," says Robenstein with a wide grin.

They particularly cherish waking up on those fresh, crisp autumn mornings to the bulls’ bugling echoing across the valley. [Mouse over picture below]

Story by John Leatherbury. Photos by Jon Cunningham.