Santa’s reindeer are not like any reindeer around. Regular reindeer don’t fly, but Santa’s reindeer fly. In the spring, reindeer eat shrubs and grasses. In the winter they have to dig in the thick snow to find lichens. Lichens look like small, crusty pieces of moss but they are actually a symbiotic organism of a fungus and green algae. Reindeer have strong antlers and when those antlers grow and fall off they grow new ones. Reindeer have a skin type on their antlers which is called velvet. Velvet on the antlers are soft and furry. That soft furry stuff gets itchy, and the male Reindeer itches it off and the antlers fall off. Sometimes male Reindeer fight with each other because they fight over a female Reindeer. When the reindeer pushes the other reindeer back, the other one gets the girl and the girl has babies. Just like when you get a boo boo it heels right back up.(unless you pick it.) anyway, the antlers are finished growing by August. They lose them early December or early January. The females generally keep their antlers until calving time, 7 months when they where bred. Then the antler growing process is repeated all over again. Reindeer herding exist perhaps 2-300 years ago and that connection between human and reindeer, foremost of form of hunting, is a great deal older. Reindeer can be found all over the world. They are native to all continents except for Australia and Antarctica. There are about 100 Reindeer in the world.
