AUSTIN — Donations of deer semen, one of Texas deer breeders’ most precious commodities, account for more than half of the contributions to a South Texan’s state House campaign.

Ana Lisa Garza, a Starr County district court judge, is challenging Rio Grande City Democrat Ryan Guillen for the District 31 seat he’s held for eight terms.

According to her last campaign finance report, Garza received $36,500 in monetary donations and $51,000 in in-kind donations, which are usually in the form of campaign advertising, polls or food and venue space for events.

In Garza’s case, the contributions were listed as individual donations of deer semen straws from deer breeders.

Each deer semen straw — from bucks with names like Gladiator Sunset, Sweet Dreams and Bandit — was assigned a $1,000 value, according to her campaign finance report. A straw refers to the container of ejaculate that is stored for later use. Breeders market their deers’ antler size and shape as reasons to buy straws from their bucks.

Uvalde deer breeder Fred Gonzalez said the donors’ straws went into a semen tank to be sold as one lot at a Texas Deer Association event last month and donated to her campaign.

Gonzalez, the treasurer of the Texas Deer Association, donated one straw to the lot. He said the deer breeding community often donates straws instead of money, although not usually directly to a political campaign.

“Semen is a very common way for us to donate,” he said. “One collection on a buck could lead to 60 straws sometimes. If you have a desirable animal, it’s a way to bring value without breaking the bank.”

The Texas Deer Association’s political action committee has received $976,025 in deer semen donations between 2006 and 2016. It has given $885,695 to campaigns and interest groups in the same span. According to expenditure reports between 2006 and 2016, the PAC has never given in-kind donations in the form of deer semen. Though the straws donated to Garza were sold at a Texas Deer Association event, the organization’s political action committee did not contribute to her campaign.

Gonzalez said he didn’t know how much the straws sold for or how the money was distributed to Garza’s campaign. He said the way he understood it, whatever price the collective lot of deer semen brought at the auction would go to her campaign. But her campaign finance report shows the individual straw donations from deer breeders, rather than one sum.

Buck Wood, an Austin-based campaign finance and ethics attorney, said he’s unsure why the donations were classified as in-kind if the straws were sold at auction and the money was given to Garza’s campaign.

“If they’d given her the straws, that would have been an in-kind donation,” Wood said. “But if they sold them and converted it to cash, that’s just a straight donation from whoever owned the property.”

As long as the money value is accurate, it doesn’t create ethical problems by labeling the donations as in-kind, Wood said.

“They still put their name down as donors and the fact that they call it in-kind and it isn’t, probably isn’t important,” he said. “The only time in-kind is important when you can’t estimate the value of the in-kind contribution.”

The Garza campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

A South Texas candidate had 9 in-kind donations of deer semen. Does this happen in other states? #TxLege pic.twitter.com/qXxECTxJFk — Scott Braddock (@scottbraddock) February 28, 2018

Garza has served as a district court judge in Starr, Jim Hogg and Duval counties for the last seven years. She faces an uphill battle in the primary against Guillen, who didn’t have a Republican challenger in his last two elections and received 100 percent of the primary and general election vote. Guillen raised $101,775 in the last filing period and has $662,364 in cash on hand.

Gonzalez said he supports Garza because she understands deer breeders’ impact to the Texas economy.

“I grew up where she grew up. I hunted with her husband,” he said. “Some people don’t like deer breeders. Some people don’t understand the benefit that we provide to Texas and small landowners.”

He added that the straws of deer semen do not have to physically be at the auction to be bought or sold. Because semen must be stored frozen, straws reside in places around the state that have liquid nitrogen on hand and personnel who know how to properly transport deer semen straws. When people buy straws, Gonzalez explained, they have the straws transferred to their “account.”

“You don’t move semen around; that’s dangerous,” Gonzalez said.

The Texas Deer Association had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.