Food Preferences of Captive Siberian Musk Deer — a Producer of Pharmaceutical Raw Materials

Under the conditions of captivity, adequate and balanced feeding becomes a determining factor in the safety of musk deer, contributing to maintaining the health of animals and their reproductive functions and increasing the productivity of deer musk. In this work, the nutrition patterns of Siberian musk deer in the winter period are established. The animals are kept in the nursery of the Altai Branch of the Scientific Center of Biomedical Technologies of FMBA of Russia. The most preferred feed types in the winter diet were found to include (on average, g/head per day): wood lichens Usnea spp. — 290; Betula spp. — 70; Urtica spp. — 80; oatmeal — 70). The nutritional indicators of the identified feed objects were determined. The content of metabolizable energy and nutrients in the daily diet consumed by musk deer was calculated. Thus, one individual consumes 520 g of natural moisture feed or 453 g of dry matter, which contains 3.57 MJ of metabolizable energy per day. The obtained data form a scientific basis for developing feeding diets for captive musk deer.