42 BULLETIN 1089, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE. 
summer corral is used largely for marking, castrating, and counting, 
and the winter corral for separating purposes and for cutting out 
animals for slaughter. 
Many of the bad features under the present methods of corralling 
can be overcome by building proper chutes connected with the cor- 
rals. The time now taken in separating a herd by the roping method 
is much too long. In one case, a herd was worked 9 hours on each 
of two days, with 5 to 6 men roping, and then only 234 reindeer 
were handled. In another case during the winter a herd was held 
in a corral during severe weather and starved for 48 hours. When 
to this period the collecting and driving of the herd is added it can 
be readily seen that much injury must have resulted to the animals. 
If reindeer are handled in too small an inclosure, the warmth of 
their bodies soon causes the surface of the ground to thaw and this 
later freezes and becomes icy, resulting in many injuries to the 
animals from slipping and falling. If there are sticks and stumps 
projecting through the snow, as is frequently the case, ribs and legs 
are sometimes broken. When the corral is too small some of the 
animals may be trampled, and this results in many losses. In the 
second case mentioned above, of 1,443 deer handled during the 
48-hour period, 11 deer were accidentally killed and a great many 
injured. Under present methods the owners regard these losses as 
an unavoidable part of a round-up. With proper corrals, however ; 
such losses may be almost entirely prevented. 
A diagram of a highly successful type of corral in use at Buck- 
land River, Alaska, for overcoming the present drawbacks in 
handling, is shown in Figure 2. In a corral of this type used in the 
Kotzebue Sound district during the marking season of 1921, a large 
herd was put through in 10§« hours and a total of 1,680 fawns 
marked. In another case, at Golovin, 1,250 animals were marked 
(ears notched and buttoned) in 14f hours. The corral illustrated is 
exceptionally large, being made to hold 10,000 reindeer. A corral 
of about half this capacity should suffice for the average Alaskan 
herd. 
The separating pens, or pockets, on either side of the entrance to 
the connecting chute form a special feature of this type of corral. 
By their use sections of a milling herd may be detached and put 
through the chute as needed. The pockets are merely partitioned off 
from the corral by " hooks," made in three sections at angles, which 
keep the detached part of the herd from rejoining the others, by 
turning the leaders away from the entrance, so that the animals mill 
in the pocket until the excitement due to imprisonment has subsided. 
Without the hooks it would be almost impossible to handle the last 
animals in the corral and the leaders would become wild and refuse 
