What deer farming techniques increase velvet antler yield?

(1) Light control for fast antler growth in deer farming: Deer farmers can, according to local conditions, build several simple plastic greenhouses with a floor area of about 125 sq m to 225 sq m, install 4 mercury lamps of 100 W to 150 W on the roof, with the lamps about 2.5 m to 2.7 m above the ground, and an illuminance of about 500°C. Starting every year in spring (preferably from early January), the daily light exposure can be increased by 6.8 hours to 9.5 hours, and the number of days of increased lighting can be 50 days to 60 days. The deer herd in the greenhouse is raised under the same conditions as outdoors. Tests have shown that with controlled-light deer farming, deer can shed their antlers and grow new velvet antler 38 days to 39 days earlier. Under natural light, stags have not yet shed their antlers and grown velvet antler in April, whereas the deer herd under controlled light in the greenhouse can shed their antlers and grow velvet antler as early as February 20, creating the conditions for extending the growth and development period of the velvet antler. As a result, the first-crop velvet antler yield of stags can increase by 0.88% to 13.8%, and especially the regenerated velvet antler not only grows into two-branch velvet antler, but its yield can increase by an average of 2 times to 3 times (290% to 310%).

(2) Sodium humate additive: Sodium humate is a multi-component organic acid with a very complex structure, and it can promote the body's oxidative acid activity and increase metabolism and the ability to absorb nutrients. Therefore, using sodium humate as a deer feed additive increases the deer's appetite and makes metabolism vigorous, providing sufficient nutrition for velvet antler growth. According to tests, each stag was fed 0.2 g of compound sodium humate three times a day, and two hours before feeding the solid compound sodium humate was diluted with water to 0.05%, with a pH value of 6.5, and then added to the concentrate feed. Feeding continued for 70 days, until the velvet antler was harvested. As a result, the test group's velvet antler yield per head was 575 g, while the control group's velvet antler yield per head was 490 g, an increase of 17%.