While Red Deer do form herds, the size of them can be very different. Red deer mating patterns usually involve a dozen or more mating attempts before the first successful one. Deer welfare: during velvetting, the welfare of the stags must take priority at all times. The average Red Deer Stag weighs around 750 lbs and stands about 5 feet at the shoulder, although they can reach up to 1,000 lbs. A large herd, with as many as 400 individuals, is an indication that the environment is able to offer them plenty of food and shelter. Red deer are among the mammals exhibiting homosexual behavior. Red deer hinds are able to reproduce at approximately 16 months of age. The average age of the red deer is between 6-9 yrs old. There may be several more matings before the stag will seek out another mate in his harem. The Red Deer stag also carries a large rack of antlers, which adds to the prestige in hunting the animal to add to your exotic trophy collection. A huge red deer stag pictured from behind looking up the grassy hill leading towards the Elizabethan house that is Wollaton Red deer stag. Hinds weighing at least 175 pounds have the best chance for a successful pregnancy. * Profiles – The side profile of antlers can provide a better indication of age. The world record red deer spiker (born on a New Zealand deer farm) had a head of 41 points as a result of genetic superiority and excellent feeding. Most stags die at between nine and twelve years of age, whereas hinds will live for a year or two longer. These deer in well-managed areas with good genetics can sometimes have multiple points (10 or more) and even have spreads outside their ears. A small herd can mean that a larger one branched off … The scoring scheme that we devised for ageing fallow deer from the status of their developing teeth (Brown & Chapman, 199 la) has been applied to red deer. Within a few weeks of shedding old antlers, new ones will start to grow. This is why learning to judge age by body characteristics is so important, because a one-year-old with great characteristics is the exact buck you want to … When we hunt the same are for a long period of time, there's always that one buck or two that either stays out of our range or gets passed up each hunting season. Female red deer reach sexual maturity at 2 years of age. Antlers on Red Stags in this class start really showing a lot of points on a huge frame of more the non typical type of head. These images show you how to tell the age of a deer, but there's one important step to do first. Materials and methods Sample The sample consisted of 113 red deer, 60 males and 53 females of known age from 1 to 138 months (Table I). You could assign each animal to a ‘probable’ age, but the accuracy of such assignments would be low for deer 3½ years old and older.” Dave went on to explain that there’s even some overlap from 1½ to 2½ in beam length, so while you might have greater success sorting these two ages apart, you wouldn’t achieve 100 percent accuracy. As a deer ages, the top … Red Deer Behavior. Either … For convenience the sample was arranged in 8 age groups. At Deer Farm near Queenstown, New Zealand Stags reach reproductive maturity at 24 to 30 months of age, and their productivity starts to decline at about 8 years of age. There are a number of factors that will affect the growth and quality of velvet antler production in stags, whether weaner, rising two-year-old (‘R2’) or mixed age older stags (‘MA’). The most characteristic feature of a male is the impressive, branched antlers, which can measure up to one metre in breadth and weigh as much as 15kg. 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