Experts are Stumped over Gender of Santa's Reindeer

Wildlife experts like Alice Blue-Mclendon, a veterinary medicine professor who specializes in deer are pondering the gender of Santa's Reindeer. Yep, the subject is quite popular on the internet every year around Christmas time as people try to use logic and many well known Christmas songs to decipher the gender of Santa’s reindeer.

Blue-McLendon, who works at the Texas A&M University stated, 'Santa's reindeers were really females, most likely." How does she come by this information? Well, she uses Rudolph as an example. Blue-McLendon goes on to say, 'Females like accessories...I think that fits because females like bling. We like shiny stuff."

So, Rudolph's shiny red nose was more of an accessory rather than a natural born condition. Plus, the reindeer pulling the sleigh are wearing antlers, obviously because of their love of accessories, right?

Another expert, Greg Finstad says that the reindeer can't be female because they would have problems that Santa couldn't take time out for, like maternity leave. Many female reindeer will be taking part in rutting season from summer into the fall. Then, afterward they would be pregnant or at least a few of them would be.

Finstad stated, 'You don't hook up your pregnant females to a sled...That is not good animal husbandry." So, the reindeer getting pregnant would seriously hamper Santa's Christmas deliveries. Another problem, female reindeer only keep their antlers when they are pregnant. So, while the reindeer pulling the sleigh could be female, they would have to be pregnant females.

Another theory is that the Reindeer might be Steers, which are castrated males. Ouch! Many using deer for sledding will often use Steers because they maintain their body condition throughout the winter. Bulls or regular deer will often get distracted during mating season and naturally be too tired out after mating season to do anything. Obviously!

Source: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/weird/story/424532.html