We're still looking for the perfect stag

Our history

The history of our first deer dates back to 1989. Veterinary surgeon Paul Audenaerde, former farm manager at Le Bois Clairet, has a wealth of prior knowledge of animal husbandry and health thanks to his training and specialisation in deer. This has proved to be a great advantage, also appreciated by customers, who have been able to benefit from advice even after the purchase of breeding animals, if they so wish.

Elaphe stag, also known as red deer, has become a speciality and a core business. Right from the start, breeding animals were exported to the Netherlands, France, the Czech Republic, Spain, Switzerland, Latvia, Romania and Greece. The rigour with which the stags were selected was appreciated by our domestic and foreign customers.

Essentially, we have made a selection based on the following characteristics:

• height, i.e. weight in relation to age;
• hardiness, which for us means good resistance to disease, smooth deliveries and a calm temperament;
• the size and shape of the wood.

By crossing Eastern European bloodlines, we are able to produce 18-month-old slaughter animals with a carcass weight of 75 kg, and regularly 80 kg or more, which is unique in Benelux and France - without having to cross-breed with allochthonous elk, i.e. foreign, not European but North American.

Many red deer breeders have to make do with 55-60 kg carcasses: slaughtering and cutting costs are the same.

What lines are used?

We only use bloodlines that have long been controlled in the wild by hunters and have become famous the world over for their desirable characteristics. Our sires come directly from important lines, mainly from Eastern Europe (one Croatian, one East German, two Hungarian, one Romanian-Carpathian), one Danish, one German-Swedish (F. Weber) and one English (Woburn Abbey):

• the Schulte-Wrede line, famous for its heavy animals. We obtained this line in 1991 through the late Gerald Walker, West Sussex;
• the Jelen line of the late Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia (now in Croatia). These animals, often blond, are very large and have heavy, long and regular antlers. It is this line that has been widely introduced into our doe herd via our former Croatian stallion 'Yugo', a descendant of Meister. As a result, our adult hinds easily weigh over 130kg, with some peaking at over 140-150kg. The average weight of our herd of adult hinds in September was 138 kg;
• the lineage of Jægersborg Dyrehave, the royal park in Copenhagen, Denmark. These animals are renowned the world over for their powerful trophies. Occasionally, white stags also appear on our premises, a mutation sought after by some, which has also produced a few white animals - a very limited number - on our premises over the years. However, we don't specifically look for white stags and, in the meantime, they have never returned to us;
• Woburn Park, known for its heavy, branched woods. For a number of years, we used a single male from Ludo Braeckman. This stag was a multipointer. However, we found that the Woburn stags were too small and that their numerous dewlaps were unnatural, so we abandoned this line;
• two Hungarian bloodlines combining heavy animals with heavy, wide and long antlers. The breeders of these stags were the Jacobs brothers and Frank Garssen, both from the Netherlands;
• A Carpathian (Romanian) breeding buck, purchased in August 2017. At the time of purchase, this large 3-year-old male was carrying antlers that, freshly sawn, weighed 10.5 kg: an enormous achievement for such a young stag. The breeders of this Romanian stag are Bruno Angonese (Straimont, Belgium) and Régis Jung (Bining, Moselle, Fr.), his sire was bred by Erich Leßlhumer, Austria ;
• At the start of 2018, we acquired 18 covered hinds from the Franz Weber hunting park in Germany. This line (of Swedish origin) is renowned for its particularly heavy, wide but rather short antlers.