Yvonne and Daryl Simon have been raising reindeer for 21 years on their farm in southern Minnesota. Daryl says they are now what you call reindeerologists.
“Having and working with reindeer for so many years, you learn a lot but you never learn enough and there’s always something else that pops up so it’s just a funny term that we use to indicate that we have a little bit of knowledge about reindeer.”
They raise reindeer to attend events with Santa or anything else between Thanksgiving and January.
“The types of events that they go to are anywhere from a community library or community center or park, to parades. They’ve also been at Santa events like a village set up.”
Yvonne adds if you want to be sure the reindeer will make it to your house on Christmas Eve, don’t leave out carrots. Give them dried oatmeal.
“Well yeah, they’ll eat carrots but their favorite is dried oatmeal. And a lot of schools are putting together little packets of dried oatmeal with glitter. When you put it out on your front doorstep Christmas Eve, the glitter attracts the reindeer so they come down to eat the snack, and they really, really do like dried oatmeal. They’ll go almost anywhere as long as you have that for their treat.”
Source: American Farm Bureau