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reader (the Second)
Rancher
Joined: 10 Feb 2005
Posts: 5221
Location: Northern Virginia
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 Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 11:14 am Post subject: Deer frolicking in the snow - why? |
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| My boyfriend and I drove through Pennsylvania to Cleveland Ohio last weekend. We saw herds of deer at sunset on the hilltops racing along. Is it mating season? Fawning season? I thought something like this was going on. He thought they were short of food in the snow. We're both from rural, agricultural towns but neither of us has been back since childhood for any period so we are clueless about the seasons of deer. You all are talking about calving season and it's early early spring here so I wondered.
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Clarence
Member
Joined: 10 Feb 2005
Posts: 225
Location: South Central Sd
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| Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 3:57 pm Post subject: |
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| I am not that much up on deer yet, but I believe the rutting season is in November and fawning season is in May. I too, saw 2 large herds of deer last night on my way home fron town. Was very windy here yesterday, I think they just came out from shelter to feed in the evening after the wind went down.
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rancher
Rancher
Joined: 10 Feb 2005
Posts: 1056
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| Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 4:41 pm Post subject: |
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| If you have lots of snow they will graze the tops of ridges where it has had a chance to blow off. They start loosing their horns from Feb. on and the best place to find them is on the ridges in a snow year.
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reader (the Second)
Rancher
Joined: 10 Feb 2005
Posts: 5221
Location: Northern Virginia
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| Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 8:26 pm Post subject: |
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| rancher wrote: |
| If you have lots of snow they will graze the tops of ridges where it has had a chance to blow off. They start loosing their horns from Feb. on and the best place to find them is on the ridges in a snow year. |
Very cool. Thanks for explaining so clearly.
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Hanta Yo
Rancher
Joined: 11 Feb 2005
Posts: 3323
Location: South Central Montana
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| Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 9:07 pm Post subject: |
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Seeing herds of deer is no big deal. You just happened to see a herd doing their thing. We see deer out here all the time, and they do their thing like cross the highway after dark and get themselves killed and trash motor vehicles! Out here, more deer get killed on the highway than what get hunted. Boy, ask me, I know from experience they do A LOT of damage to cars/pickups!!
I think the deer population is increasing, so when you see deer you think it is an exceptional event. Those of us who have to live with them don't think that, sometimes we cuss 'em because they like to eat our gardens and the hay we put up for the cows!!
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reader (the Second)
Rancher
Joined: 10 Feb 2005
Posts: 5221
Location: Northern Virginia
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| Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 9:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Hanta Yo wrote: |
Seeing herds of deer is no big deal. You just happened to see a herd doing their thing. We see deer out here all the time, and they do their thing like cross the highway after dark and get themselves killed and trash motor vehicles! Out here, more deer get killed on the highway than what get hunted. Boy, ask me, I know from experience they do A LOT of damage to cars/pickups!!
I think the deer population is increasing, so when you see deer you think it is an exceptional event. Those of us who have to live with them don't think that, sometimes we cuss 'em because they like to eat our gardens and the hay we put up for the cows!! |
Believe it or not we see a lot of deer here in the suburbs, especially in Maryland and they are considered as much a pest here as in the country. In fact we have a case or two of fatal car-deer accidents where hitting the deer kills the driver or passengers even in close-in suburbs. I was just surprised to see such a large herd (10?) out close to houses near Pittsburgh. It was in snow at sundown and they were on top of the ridge behind the houses. I also saw a rabbit in the snow in Oberlin, Ohio which was the first time I have seen a rabbit in snow.
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Hanta Yo
Rancher
Joined: 11 Feb 2005
Posts: 3323
Location: South Central Montana
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| Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 11:15 pm Post subject: |
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| You've never seen a rabbit in the snow? We have all kinds of bunnies out here, and this year must have been a good reproductive year for them because there are tons of bunnies out here! Both Jackrabbit and Cottontails. Don't know what else to tell you about the deer. We have large groups of Does and Fawns that hang around, sometimes in bunches as large as 30.
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Faster horses
Rancher
Joined: 11 Feb 2005
Posts: 9495
Location: MT/SD
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| Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 11:19 pm Post subject: |
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On the place we leased in Johnson County. Wyoming we had lots of irrigated hay meadows. In the fall, AT LEAST 500 deer would come out on those meadows to graze. It was something!! We let handicapped people from town in to hunt them because A.)we were close to town, B) it was easy for them to bag one.
500 deer can do a LOT of damage.
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Hanta Yo
Rancher
Joined: 11 Feb 2005
Posts: 3323
Location: South Central Montana
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| Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 11:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Boy, you said THAT right, FH.
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nr
Rancher
Joined: 10 Feb 2005
Posts: 2786
Location: DE
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| Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2005 7:03 am Post subject: |
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Has anyone ever heard of laying wire fencing down FLAT in front of a shrub you don't want deer to eat? Something about them not wanting to walk across what might snag their feet maybe like a cattle crossing.
We have one evergree tree they especially devour from the ground up to about 4 feet every year and I was thinking of trying this.
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Northern Rancher
Rancher
Joined: 10 Feb 2005
Posts: 7321
Location: saskatchewan
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| Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2005 8:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Dog hair will keep deer out of shrubs-thats what people use to keep them out of stackyards up here-those deer were probably playing because springs coming.
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