Elk and red deer gather at the trough at feeding time.
Antlers are not a common sight on local farms, but then Highland Deer Farm in Germantown is not your average farm. For 25 years owner Mark MacNamara has been working to provide his customers with high quality, healthy alternatives to mainstream meats. A trim, calm, soft-spoken 60-year-old man who clearly loves animals, MacNamara was Curator of Mammals at the Bronx Zoo for ten years. In 1984 he bought a former dairy farm on 50 acres of rolling hills in the Southwestern corner of Columbia County and put his PhD in deer behavior and passion for exotic hoof stock to work. The result offers compelling reasons to eat outside the box.
The farm is currently raising red deer—native to Europe—as well as fallow deer, elk, and a red deer-elk hybrid that MacNamara calls super reds; the result is “a large deer that has a relatively calm disposition and grows faster than red deer but is smaller than pure elk.” He used to have white-tailed deer, but predation from coyotes proved too much of a problem. He also raises some antelopes, like waterbuck, addax, and scimitar oryx as breeding stock for zoos, animal parks, and collectors around the world. Their bold patterning and long, elegant horns make for an arresting sight in the fields.
Three adjacent pastures show differences in the dietary habits of the various species; a quick survey reveals that mouflon (wild sheep) don’t eat thistles, the red deer don’t like milkweed, and the antelope eat pretty much everything. As we walk down towards the red deer, all the bucks raise their heads and turn to look at us in unison, antlers high. The absence of millennia of domestication is evident in all the species; unlike cows, they all run to the farthest corner of the field and crowd there, watching us intently.
Bison at the Highland Deer Farm.
Because he is limited by the size of his farm, over the years MacNamara has partnered with about 15 other farmers across the state to raise animals according to his standards, and they deliver animals as needed throughout the year. They process about 10-12 deer per week and sell them at local weekly markets (Rhinebeck and Kingston) as well as directly to restaurants and by mail order all over the country. Prime cuts like steaks, roasts, and loins are packaged whole, while the rest—about 60 percent of the total volume—is sold as sausage, jerky, and other products. These value-added products are made at the Smokehouse of the Catskills in Saugerties and Mountain Products in LaGrangeville. Customers can also order animals and come pick them up at the farm, either whole or butchered.
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