Moose, calf healthy
A mother moose and her calf make good use of outdated produce, at the Haustein acerage.
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Winter has proven fairly kind to a lame moose and calf that found food and refuge on an acreage west of Red Deer.
Since late November, Mike Haustein and Christine Markwart, who live in the Shady Nook area, have been scrounging discarded produce from local grocery stores to feed the moose and her calf.
With her bull calf in tow, “Sweetheart” showed up near their home, hobbling on three legs because of what appears to have been a broken bone in her front right ankle.
Before long, Haustein and Markwart were providing eight pails of feed a day to the moose and calf, getting strawberries, apples, lettuce and other greens from three grocery stores in Red Deer and Gasoline Alley.
Costco and Safeway have since dropped out of the program, but Haustein is still going into Sobeys three days a week to pick up discarded food for the four-footed guests.
Haustein said this week that the cow moose’s foot has healed, but it’s a bit crooked and that part of her leg is somewhat thicker than normal. All the same, she doesn’t seem to have suffered any serious, long-term effects.
“She can actually run pretty good. . . . It’s remarkable how it’s turning out here.”
Haustein has been gradually cutting back on the amount of feed he puts out for the moose and has stopped setting out berries and fruits, except apples.
“The calf, he’s growing, so we’re just kind of weaning them down from six to eight pails a day. Last week, it was four pails, two in the morning and two at night. Now it’s down to . . . one and a half in the morning and one at night.”
The moose normally show up late in the morning or early in the afternoon, have a snack and a drink and take off, coming back later in the evening.
They didn’t come back at all on Monday night, but showed up as usual on Tuesday for their morning meal.
Although getting fewer groceries, they’re actually drinking more water, which Haustein believes indicates that they’re eating more of their natural diet of twigs and whatever else they can find in the bush.
They still take refuge in a bushy area near the house, where they can lie down and virtually disappear when people are running snowmobiles in nearby fields, he said.
Haustein suspects that once the new buds start opening on the trees and shrubs, the cow will push her 2009 calf away, especially if she is pregnant.
The calf is now about two-thirds the size of his mother and showing little bumps where his first pair of antlers will appear later in the year.
“He’s not so little any more. I assume she’ll be getting rid of him this spring.”
Whether she is expecting a new calf this spring is unknown. A bull moose that was pestering her when she first showed up at the acreage hasn’t been around since before Christmas.
bkossowan@reddeeradvocate.com
