Designer deer auctioned off to breeders and hunters

The deer are genetically engineered to have antlers with a high score.
BOSTON HEIGHTS, Ohio (AP) -- Call them designer deer.
On Saturday, dozens of does and bucks -- some bottle-fed and hand-raised -- went up for auction to a growing market of farmers and hunters searching for deer with stunning antlers.
For deer breeders, developing a bloodline is more than a hobby, it's a lucrative business that caters to a clientele looking for impressive trophies they say they can no longer find in the woods.
Ben Waldbeser, of Milford, Ind., raised hogs for 41 years before he quit in 2006 and focused on his deer herd, which he'd developed for about seven years.
"You can put 220 hogs on a semi, and what you gross from that sale equals the sale of one deer. The sky's the limit," Waldbeser said, adding that a top deer in his herd could fetch 25,000.
It's the antlers that make the farmed deer so valuable.
Antlers from deer are evaluated using several factors including length, spread, and the size of each point. Deer in the wild generally have a "rack score" of about 125, while farm-raised deer consistently score above 200, auction organizer Jerry Campbell said.
"They have been selectively bred to produce racks you can't find in the wild," Campbell said Friday. "They are superior genetically and healthwise."
Purpose of auction
Though many bidders attended the auction to buy animals or semen for their breeding herds, others are owners of private game preserves. They stock their land with the trophy bucks, then open it up to hunters.
"People want to harvest what is called a 'real wall-hanger,'" Campbell said.
Winning bidders won't get to take their purchases home right away, because animals aren't carted in to the hotel auction site about 25 miles south of Cleveland. Instead, owners pitch their offerings through a brochure and PowerPoint presentations.
The idea of deer farming was developed by the Amish, who run about 30 percent to 40 percent of the country's 8,000 farms, Campbell said.
Others, like Waldbeser and Mary Pierce of Sarona, Wis., branched out from other forms of livestock such as pigs and cattle. Pierce and her husband began raising deer as a hobby in 1998, with just six does and a single buck.
"Friends thought we were crazy," she said. "They said, 'You can see them in the wild and you're paying for them?"'
But the herd grew to over 100, and Pierce has since persuaded a handful of friends to start their own farms.