Red Deer

I keep forgetting to say, but 3 weeks a go now our master stag Albus Dumbledeer cast his antlers. Every year in the spring the stags lose their antlers, and then start to re-grow a new set straight away. It only takes about 16 weeks to re-grow from nothing to a full crown, amazing when you think about it.

Anyway, this year I have decided to re-do a project I did with our old stag, Eric, a few years back... I will be taking a photograph of Albus every week during this phase just to show you how visible the difference in antler size is week on week. Once completed, likely the end of summer, I will put them in a post here and explain a bit more about the process.

As you can see from above, they don't always cast both antlers at the same time, and below at one week... there are already a couple of bumps on his head where they are beginning to reform.

I have included a couple of videos for you here too. The first one is of the deer feeding out in the paddock. A lot of people show interest in this when we go out to feed them, and a few have asked about it...

The second is a short clip I took only the other day of our wild jackdaw pulling the moulting hair off the back of our fallow deer buck. They have been doing this every morning for the last week or so with all our fallow deer, great fun to watch, I think I might have a photo somewhere too...

Here you go... Three going at it, with the puzzled look on the deers face. I love the jackdaw on the left, really putting his back in to it!