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The Magic of the North Pole - Reindeer in the Poconos 12-08-2025
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From the Arctic to the Poconos, Rachann Mayer and Cassandra Hoover, of Spruce Ridge Reindeer Farm, explore the wonder of reindeer, the science of antlers and the challenge of ecosecurity. Listeners will discover how one woman's passion has turned a reindeer farm into a successful agritourism location, blending education, magic, and care for the herd. This episode highlights the role of community, connection, and environmental protection for reindeer.
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Audio file
RCP Reindeer Magic Total Release Date 12-08-25.mp3
Transcript
Do you ever wonder why Santa's reindeer go click, click, click?
Reindeer really do click up on the rooftop, click, click, click.
And the antlers, antlers and horns are different.
The difference between a horn and an antler.
Horns never fall off your head.
They typically don't have tines.
The blood flow and nerve on a horn is on the inside like your tooth.
And that's what supports that fast-growing antler while it's growing.
They're the fastest growing cells in the world.
Stay tuned with Cassandra, the reindeer magic lady from Spruce Ridge Farm.
Our pet care with a personal touch is not just a motto, it's really what we do.
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Visit us anytime on our Facebook page, Mariah Belle Manor Kennel, or mariahbellemanorkennel.com.
Today, as always, we have a fun, interesting, and magical guest.
Cassandra, welcome to the program.
Can you introduce yourself and tell us where you're from?
Hello, I am Cassandra Hoover, the Reindeer Magic Lady, and I reside in the Poconos of Pennsylvania.
Our farm is located in Albrightsville, PA.
How did you get the name, the Reindeer Magic Lady, and how does this tie to your passion?
My mother-in-law was a wildlife rehabber.
In the mid-80s, she had a regular whitetail
He had been hit by a car, had a broken hip.
She brought him back to wellness.
And when I married into the family, there was 119 of them on the farm.
I can't imagine what the feed bill was, but I got voluntold to help bottle raise babies.
And we would do pictures and petting and educational programs with different locations.
As you know, whitetails are wild.
So when they weaned from mom, which was us with bottles, it was adios, see you buy him out of here.
And that was the end of anything program wise with the whitetails.
She was dependent on having babies every year.
When we took over the farm, we had a buck that was completely deaf.
They hung out with me way later into the year.
They were super, super, super friendly.
Obviously, they didn't care about screaming kids.
In 2011, I found myself in front of a chiropractic physical therapy office.
I turned around and looked at my husband and he goes, that's it.
Literally went home and Googled it.
They know exactly what the topic is that we're talking about, right?
When I went to get a Gmail address for reindeer lady, it was taken.
magic, and I just get to be the ambassador of them.
Who knew your mother-in-law was going to have such an impact?
And the one little girl, and in my mind, I see Lucy who, right?
But just that one little girl going, These aren't reindeer.
You never know what words spoken over you will cause the impact.
My experience with the whitetail gave me
a great basis going into the reindeer.
Now, whitetails and reindeer do not play nice biologically.
Let's talk about a bot, right?
That same bot with a reindeer would actually cause what we would call a brain worm.
And it's a neurological order that could kill a reindeer.
So they can't be in the same space.
And anybody with horses knows about bots and bot flies.
So horses couldn't be in that same spot either.
So we already have fawns showing up and landing on the grounds.
different pair of shoes and go to the reindeer barn.
But that was the most hectic time in my life, trying to bottle raise babies and have reindeer.
I must have changed my clothes 15 times a day.
It may be exaggerated, but it felt that way.
But it'd be shoes that would be everything, washing hands, everything.
Biosecurity, basic 101, biosecurity.
Yeah, and baby fawns aren't going to eat just once a day, either every couple hours.
So we dwindled down our whitetail herd, went to other whitetail spaces.
Liberty was-- ooh, how old was Liberty?
She was a tween, I think, at that point.
And she was blind in one eye and was deaf.
So I wasn't going to send her anywhere else because she knew the territory where she was at.
She lived till she was about 19.
wild, we'll call it wild, deer that came to the farm from the game commission.
And again, she was like 18, 19 when she passed.
And so we just kept a small handful there at the farm.
Or is it reindeer or reindeers?
Reindeer is singular and plural, right?
Was it the conference that gave you the cue into this or were there
there tragedies that happened to cue you into this.
Well, we started learning about them way back before we bought them, right?
But then, of course, you never
So after you have them, there are always things that you're going to learn from.
There isn't a moment that you can't learn something, right?
We had a reindeer back in, I want to say it was 2017 that
that had gotten bitten by a tick.
It causes a disease called Babesia.
It's typically fatal for a reindeer.
It attacks their kidneys and their livers, literally just falls apart.
I had unfortunately lost a couple of reindeer to Babesia previously.
And so I immediately saw the signs of it and hit a protocol.
And one of the drugs, it's an off drug.
Everything we use is off-label.
Not enough is for a pharmacy to develop things specifically for reindeer in the lower 48 states.
So there was a specific drug that I
It's a drug that's used for dogs.
And Merck, the maker of it, had it on backorder for probably six months.
The vets can't get a hold of it.
So we start calling through all of the reindeer community.
And so lots of motion going all at once.
That's not to pat me on the shoulder.
That's just to say that you're never any better than the knowledge that you gained.
And that's one of the things that's very important to me on my farm.
I keep a small herd because I know everyone
one of my reindeer, not just personalities, but temperaments, that type of thing.
So when they twitch their ear, I know what that means.
They're not looking right and you catch things early.
Welcome back to Raising Connections.
I really think I am very fortunate in
becoming an ambassador for these reindeer, because it really is reindeer magic.
I'm just the one behind them, and I love sharing the magic about them.
They are so different from our local reindeer.
Up on the rooftop, click, click, click.
It's also how that reindeer herd, because they are a herding animal.
So that's one of those divine designs that they have.
And fun fact, our babies aren't going to click until after their first birthday.
We don't want predators to find our babies.
But that is a divine design about reindeer, not just a story tale.
I had no idea that it was a tendon.
and their legs that clicks, not the hooves.
Even the fun stuff like rabbits that could bring ticks in on their fur.
Our second line of defense are the guinea hens.
Guinea hens are going to eat all the ticks and bugs and things that might float in on the air.
Somewhere I read that a guinea hen will eat 5,000 ticks a year.
I don't know who got to count that, but here we go.
Ticks are terrible in Pennsylvania.
We also have some cats that do what barn cats do.
And then we've used all-natural stuff inside the fencing for the health and safety of the ranger.
that to keep those reindeer happy, healthy, and safe.
Most people are going to think that it's too hot for a reindeer.
It's not that it's too hot for a reindeer.
So those are the things that are harmful health-wise.
So we are very conscious about that space that they're in.
That's also a regulation for the state.
CWD is a chronic wasting disease that our whitetails have.
I've been watching it come up the Appalachian Mountains for public.
about 20, 25 years, and it is now in my backyard.
We don't want any nose to nose contact or any other liquid contact with the reindeer.
And that disease is very debilitating to the whitetails
they literally waste away and they get neurologically unbalanced.
Nobody wants to find that anywhere.
Not in the deer population, not the reindeer population.
place because of your care and love that they normally wouldn't be.
You purchased Spruce Ridge Farms specifically for agritourism.
tourism with very specific things in mind to invite guests to your farm.
It gave me the space that I needed to
the environment to the reindeer.
It gave me the access for me to be able to continue to travel on and off the road.
It gave access to people coming to my farm.
At the previous farm, it was just unfriendly.
We were probably 14 miles at minimum from a major highway.
The last few miles was a lane and a half gravel road.
The GPS would bring you to the next road over.
to this farm is so much easier than our past farm.
So being able to get to your location
Having accessibility once you get on the farm is also important.
So we're almost accessible, but that's something that you want to look at as well.
Township, if you have a township that's going to be friendly to you, that's important.
We went through 90 days of approvals to bring the
reindeer into our location, and that had to go through all the steps from the township.
Knowing your product and what you plan to do, I think is super, super important.
And if you have experience elsewhere, how can you translate that into the new property?
Having that community is a fallback for everybody.
I appreciate you sharing your wisdom on that one.
In 2015, when I brought the first reindeer home, we had a Purina reindeer chow.
And I always tell people, who knew Purina made reindeer chow?
But my reindeer wouldn't eat it.
We did some research with the zoos, multiple species and their recipe.
And again, it wasn't to their palate.
So we ended up putting our nutritionist
on board for those babies in the wintertime.
Not only do we have that feed because they're not going to eat the grains up in the Arctic, right?
So we want to make sure that they get all the nutrition and stuff that we can serve them with here.
I have some willow trees that we have planted.
We bring in some birch and some beech.
I have a ton of pine trees on the property.
And in the fall, we'll start throwing in the pine trees because not only will they rub their antlers
It's going to fulfill all that they need, but that's not what they eat in the Arctic.
So we want to try and bring as much forage in as possible.
And that makes a difference on their teeth.
So horses have teeth that continue to grow and they need to be floated, which is horse dentistry.
But other animals have their teeth, much like humans.
And that's what reindeer have.
And it's a soft enamel on them.
Let's talk a little bit about how fast a reindeer moves because they fly, right?
A reindeer can go 50 miles an hour.
We're going to look at the Samiis in Mongolia.
The Samis will also ride them.
They're much smaller people than we are here in America.
And they're also going to use from tip to tail of that reindeer to survive.
designed and they're going to call the mean ones.
That's the one they're going to eat is that mean one.
And taking out that mean spirit and bred in that soft, gentle spirit.
It will get you farther is what I used to be told.
The reindeer have antlers and they can be mean with those antlers.
Can you tell us about those antlers?
Because they are something magical.
Now, both boys and girls grow and drop antlers every year.
And we'll typically start growing antlers in March.
And when they're growing, they're colored in velvet.
Now, the difference between a horn and an antler, horns never fall off your head.
They typically don't have tines.
And what I want to point out is the blood flow and nerve on a horn is on the inside like your tooth.
They fall off and regrow every year.
That blood flow and nerve has to go somewhere.
It's actually in that velvet on the outside.
And that's what supports that fast-growing antler while it's growing.
They're the fastest growing cells in the world.
It can grow up to an inch a day.
And I swear, there are days I blink in the barn and they've grown in front of me.
So they grow super, super fast.
And they're going to grow throughout the
So when they shake their head, it actually vibrates because it's not hard yet.
It gets loose and wiggly and annoying.
They're going to want to rub it all off.
The boys are going to rub that velvet off mid to late August.
She's going to use those to forage for food as well as protect herself.
The bulls and the unbred females can't be bullies to her because they don't have any antlers.
She'll drop those antlers around the time of the baby's born.
Now, Vixen was a perfect example last year.
She dropped an antler on Wednesday, had her baby on Friday, dropped her other antler on Tuesday.
So they're very hormonal based.
When the testosterone drops on the boys in the fall after breeding season, so do their antlers.
level will determine whether the girls hang on to where they drop their antlers.
Now, why do babies need antlers?
And they're going to be those little sticky
ones that look like little L's on their head, typically.
So that's their first little thing.
Now, they are not necessarily indicative of what their long-term antler is going to look like.
They just kind of need this little protection antler that first year.
reindeer antler is to a reindeer what your thumbprint is to you.
So every year, that antler is going to grow back in that same pattern.
But that general shape is going to be their shape every year.
That's really something special.
I had no idea that they truly are magical.
So we are in Pennsylvania in the Poconos in Albrightsville, PA.
And I encourage people to purchase their tickets in advance at spruceridgereindeer.com.
We do our educational tour almost all year round.
I close in March, last little bit of February and the month
March and maybe a week or so in April.
They're changing colors in the fall because in the summer they are a dark chocolate brown.
So spruce like the tree, S-P-R-U-C-E ridge, R-I-D-G-E reindeer, R-E-I-N-D-E-R.com.
And if we have any goats or sheep at our house, you're going to ask us to do something very special.
clean set of clothes and don't go visit them that day that you're coming to see us.
I love how passionate you are about the reindeer and you have made so many connections
It's a great place to see them in January.
They are an Arctic winter animal.
Cassandra, the reindeer magic lady, thank you for being part of us today.
We'll make some more connections.
This program is a production of Raising Connections Media Company.
Hosted and produced by Roshan Mayer and edited and mixed by Robin Temple.