February 6, 2009

Deer bed by the Pond

Deer poo

This year's shed antlers

We regularly see a half dozen White-tailed Deer crossing the river morning and evening. O found antlers where they've been bedding down so we read about them. Growth begins in the spring when antlers are covered in velvet which supplies oxygen and nutrients to the bone. They attain full size in the fall, at breeding, or rutting, season. The velvet begins to dry and peel and the buck rubs his antlers on trees to remove the velvet. Continued rubbing polishes the antlers which remain throughout the rut. Around the first of the year, reabsorption of the bone around the base occurs, the antlers loosen and fall. Mice and rabbits glean minerals and protein from the shed antlers.

Now how cool is that?