Many of you know by now that the Rut is coming up fast. We’ve got about 6-8 weeks before all hell breaks loose. For those of you new to the sport, the rut is when the bull elk go forth and begin to collect cow elk for the purpose of passing on their genetic fluids with the idea being that they will be improving the herd and the species in general. Think of it as being like Fight Game with elk sex involved. This may not be for the squeamish. But it is Nature so you’ll just have to deal with it. That or stay out of elk country for the next 2½ – 3 months, because it’ll be happening where ever elk congregate.

What you may not know is that The Institute backs several of these young bulls in the upcoming events. We stable them at our Spring training camp at Rocky Mountain National Park so it’s easy for us to keep an eye on them. We sponsor them, provide them with equipment and training, meds (but not steroid’s, none of our bulls have ever tested positive for steroids) bandages and wraps, unguents that help with velvet removal, antler polishing supplies, promote them both locally and nationally and try and position them so they move up through the ranks. Several of our better known fighters have been featured in the preliminaries at various MMA events and we hope to get one of our up and comers featured in an early ESPN covered fight mid-September. We need to cross our antlers on that one but it looks possible.

We stopped by the bull pen the other day to see how everyone was faring and found them in the usual state they’re in this time of year. Everyone is grazing like crazy trying to put on weight. They’re doing the calisthenics necessary for rapid antler growth, and they’re checking out their competition daily. Some of these guys have known each other since grade school but this will be their first real fight and the stakes are high. Not only do you get bragging rights for being the bull of the hour but the chicks, man, the chicks. They are foxes, stone cold foxes. These are the choice cows of the herd and they know it, they only join harems where the bull is Numero Uno. So the incentive is very high.

Right now though everyone is in a heightened state of awareness, full of self-doubt and insecurities and worried about how they’re going to perform.  Besides that those velvet covered antlers are itchy, like really itchy, like drive you bat-crap crazy itchy. That’s where we can help by providing that special proprietary, patent applied for, unguent developed in our labs here at The Institute. It takes the itch right out of those antlers and lets these guys get some sleep and yet enhances their strength and vitality through the proper use of chemicals. it helps them put on weight and develop incredible muscle tone and gives them that little extra edge of madness they need to really go out there and kick elk butt. It’s our job to buck them up, give them the support they need, convince them that they’re the best, and we take that very seriously.

The young bull pictured above, Twitchy, was very glad to see us. Nearly in tears in fact. He needed the unguent bad and could barely stop himself from scratching his antlers down to a nub. Of course we provided it to him, for a slight increase over our normal cut of the gate but then unguent doesn’t grow on trees you know. We’ve got expenses too.

Otherwise the prospects look pretty good for this season. There’s some big bulls out there and a lot of them got their cans kicked last year so they didn’t get a chance to spend any quality time with the ladies so they’re pumped. It won’t be long before the preliminaries start with the bulls matching up, shoving and pushing, seeing who looks weak and who they have to watch out for. This looks like a promising Rut. Now if we can just get some of those heavy-duty agents in here so we can sign some of these guys we’ll be set.