Calf Size - Age

[75]

Morning Folks,

New enough to the game and still trying to learn. Trying to determine if these are early spring calves or late previous season calves.

Just wondering if anyone could shed some light on this topic for me. One of my permissions which stocks some reds, Ive noticed huge differences between calves throughout the summer and spring. Last year I seen some very small (lamb sized) calves even in mid July, but this year I’ve noticed a lot of well grown but still with spots. I’m trying to figure out if this is a case these larger calves are from late last season and the hind has still to drop or are these actually early this year calves ?

I'm just looking at this image again - it's not the clearest but I do think the ground level is playing tricks on what we see. The ground looks flat but the deer on the left is, to my eye, standing much lower than the deer on the right. The bottom of it's chest pretty much aligns to the knee on the other deer. I suspect perspective is also compressed as the image is zoomed in - this is well known in photography with zoom lenses at distance. So the deer on the left could be 20' further back and not stood at the side of the other.

So likely not the size difference there appears at first glance.

 

[Midlandstalker2024]

I'm just looking at this image again - it's not the clearest but I do think the ground level is playing tricks on what we see. The ground looks flat but the deer on the left is, to my eye, standing much lower than the deer on the right. The bottom of it's chest pretty much aligns to the knee on the other deer. I suspect perspective is also compressed as the image is zoomed in - this is well known in photography with zoom lenses at distance. So the deer on the left could be 20' further back and not stood at the side of the other.

So likely not the size difference there appears at first glance.

The deer on the left is actually standing closer to the camera than the hind behind it. The ground is fairly flat as they’re standing on a forestry lane, albeit fairly rough. The hind took off running and the calf followed its lead. The calf actually came out of the wood first, spotted me and walked toward me that’s why it’s facing directly at me then the hind came out of the wood

 

[HonestJohn]

This is such a simple question to address. It’s a yearling, the hind looks like it’s not dropped yet, expect her to have a fawn in the next week at most. It’s poor picture quality to be fair. The yearling (ie, calf from summer ‘24) might be slightly underdeveloped or born late and still with some spots. You sure there’s no hybrid genes with Sika?

 

[Midlandstalker2024]

This is such a simple question to address. It’s a yearling, the hind looks like it’s not dropped yet, expect her to have a fawn in the next week at most. It’s poor picture quality to be fair. The yearling (ie, calf from summer ‘24) might be slightly underdeveloped or born late and still with some spots. You sure there’s no hybrid genes with Sika?

Thank you, kind of what I was thinking of and hoping for confirmation. There’s no sika in our area, closest would be over 80km away