Roe with no hair on it's neck?

Chasey

Well-Known Member
I managed to bag a roebuck this morning and its coat seemed a little desheveled but I thought it might be molting.

However there was no hair on its neck? I have never seen this before

The gralloch seemed normal with no gland issues. I couldn't inspect the head because it was head shot with a 75g BT and there was not much left to inspect but the antlers were small but well formed and mostly out of velvet


Any thoughts?

Should I be concerned?

ATB

Chasey
 
It happens this time of year, changing from winter to summer coat.

If everything else was as normal then no cause for concern.
 
Nothing to worry about at all. Appears to be more prominent in young roe bucks. You'll often find slightly enlarged mesenterics at the same time. As jobnut says, if everything else passed muster then you shouldn't worry.
 
Guessing the good old BT headshot debate.....?

Usually gets the monkeys rattling their cages
 
Is this a wind up


No its a serious question.

Don't get many Roe round here mainly Fallow.

I have shot 5 in four years and never in April

All the ones I have shot before had beautifull coats but this one looked pretty manky
 
Guessing the good old BT headshot debate.....?

Usually gets the monkeys rattling their cages

Just a statement of fact.

There wasnt enough left of the head to examine the submax and retro glands. Just a smashed skull and liquid mush from the head on shot just below eye level
 
Just a statement of fact.

There wasnt enough left of the head to examine the submax and retro glands. Just a smashed skull and liquid mush from the head on shot just below eye level
BT in the head do tend to do that. You also find that you don't get too many runners!
 
Most Roe at this time of year are moulting, usually the bigger mature bucks are clean of velvet and to a certain extent more forward in coming into summer coat. Whilst the younger animals tend to be a bit later in shedding their winter coat and loosing their velvet. Hence their looking rather dishevelled and to the untrained eye possibly sick.

Hair lose is not unusual in younger beasts and they can carry lice. If its been a particularly hard winter younger Roe tend to suffer more and can look pretty bad by early spring, having lost a great deal of weight. This leaves them open to being less immune to lice, ticks etc in my opinion.
 
I managed to bag a roebuck this morning and its coat seemed a little desheveled but I thought it might be molting.

However there was no hair on its neck? I have never seen this before

The gralloch seemed normal with no gland issues. I couldn't inspect the head because it was head shot with a 75g BT and there was not much left to inspect but the antlers were small but well formed and mostly out of velvet


Any thoughts?

Should I be concerned?

ATB

Chasey

Hi Chaney

I grassed two bucks last week that looked yuk, fur ( under moult ) looked disgracefully dishevelled

external no abnormal insect activity inspection was all fine and internal was spot on, no problems at all and a good weight

its the time of the year, on a different beat this morning, same thing, its moulting time, doesn't look good but just take extra care on pre shot, external and internal inspection, any problems should flag its self up

you can if you wish. Skin back the fur away from the gut cut before you open up to slow down fur getting in the internal areas, but just a bit of care when gralloching should do the job

was the buck in Kent, we are a bit shy of Roe around my way, it's all fallow

cheers

phil
 
Don't get many roe round here? It's because people like you just shoot them on site.


Are you for real!!? 10 posts and you go wading in with assumptions about someone?!

We shoot all the deer on sight for some landowners as that's what they want and is the cull plan! They want the deer on the ground. While on other land I have permission on, I manage them differently and are selective in my shooting. Without knowing Chasey's circumstances maybe you should go easy with your posts? Just a suggestion, obviously!

With regard to the OP, I shot a similar buck a few weeks ago and posted the pics and condition in the diseases section, but it turned out to have been popped at by someone with a shotgun so was recovering from injury,

Stratts
 
I hadn't seen your post until now Stratts. Personally I wouldn't have condemned the carcass. Being shot with a shot gun would certainly not have helped his wellbeing but 11kg is not terrible for the very start of April for a young buck. Swollen lymph nodes and particularly mesenterics are perfectly normal on a poor young buck in April too. I am confident that he would have recovered if he hadn't met a stalker. That said, he was the perfect cull buck on any well managed ground and I would also have picked him out for the first to be shot from the herd as I'm sure most good deer managers would have. It's lack of fur is absolutely typical for that age class buck in April, as is the high ecto parasite burden.
It was certainly a good post for new deer managers to learn from and just what this site needs. :tiphat:
 
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I hadn't seen your post until now Stratts. Personally I wouldn't have condemned the carcass. Being shot with a shot gun would certainly not have helped his wellbeing but 11kg is not terrible for the very start of April for a young buck. Swollen lymph nodes and particularly mesenterics are perfectly normal on a poor young buck in April too. I am confident that he would have recovered if he hadn't met a stalker. That said, he was the perfect cull buck on any well managed ground and I would also have picked him out for the first to be shot from the herd as I'm sure most good deer managers would have. It's lack of fur is absolutely typical for that age class buck in April, as is the high ecto parasite burden.
It was certainly a good post for new deer managers to learn from and just what this site needs. :tiphat:

Thanks mate it was the first deer I had shot that showed any sign of being unwell and being inexperienced stalking Roe, it was a case of better safe than sorry. Especially as some of my carcasses now go into the food chain via a butcher!
 
Don't get many roe round here? It's because people like you just shoot them on site.


Yes when they are legal that's the instruction from the land owner.

Pretty sure they would get me to shoot them all year if they could get a licence

Only thing they hate more then deer are squirrels :)
 
Hi Chaney

I grassed two bucks last week that looked yuk, fur ( under moult ) looked disgracefully dishevelled

external no abnormal insect activity inspection was all fine and internal was spot on, no problems at all and a good weight

its the time of the year, on a different beat this morning, same thing, its moulting time, doesn't look good but just take extra care on pre shot, external and internal inspection, any problems should flag its self up

you can if you wish. Skin back the fur away from the gut cut before you open up to slow down fur getting in the internal areas, but just a bit of care when gralloching should do the job

was the buck in Kent, we are a bit shy of Roe around my way, it's all fallow

cheers

phil

Hi Phill thanks for the advice

No, it was near Gatwick Airport
 
Thanks for all the helpful posts.

I gave the buck a proper good look during the grallock, and as said everything seemed fine so I am guessing as said in several posts its just a time of year thing I hadn't seen close up before.

For some reason we only get Roe on site during the warmer periods and even then its mainly on sunny days. During the winter its all fallow and we seem to get mainly young fallow does and prickets. A large buck has only been seen once on trail cam and once by a stalker. It must have been good because he said it was "too good to shoot"

Frankly wed get in more trouble with the land owner if we admitted wed let one live than saying we shot loads :D
 
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