In wheat or barley?

[Jamie956]

So, all things being equal would roe rather lye up in wheat or barley, and are they more fussy when it's nearly ready for combining, always wondered?
Cheers

 

[Heym SR20]

I think most deer prefer to nibble on barley, but winter barley will be combined before wheat.

As for lying up. Very much depends on whether or not they are disturbed. And why bother going far, if you perfectly good food by your bed.

 

[Sanglier 857]

I’ve found they prefer to lay up in wheat, same as foxes.

 

[User00056]

I have both wheat and barley nearby. More often see them laid up in the wheat recently. Easier to see them with short straw crops I've been seeing this last couple of years

 

[jall55]

I’ve found they prefer to lay up in wheat, same as foxes.

Im with you - Barley usually too thick and prickly

 

[geoshot]

I've noticed on a decent patch of ground I have access to in Devon that the Roe tend to lie up in wheat
And hereabouts they have the choice of wheat, barley, beans, oilseed and various vegetable fields
Seems that, here at least, wheat is the favourite outside of hedgerows and spinneys

 

[Cyres]

Bit late most of it now combined!
D

 

[Tim.243]

So, all things being equal would roe rather lye up in wheat or barley, and are they more fussy when it's nearly ready for combining, always wondered?
Cheers

Deer will lay in wheat/barley/oats it is the field they are used to like the trails they follow just it happens to have been drilled with a cereal crop.
I watched some fallow the other night walk along a tram line of oats come to a stop and lay down, the year before it was a different cereal crop
Same field.
I have set a camera up by a poor SFI crop which was spring wheat and they have been laying down it that!

 

[SikaSeeker]

Lucky they’re gone from Ireland, because they’d only have rushes and moss to lie up in lol

 

[Jamie956]

Cheers, I always wondered if they had a preference or if it was down to shelter etc at the time

 

[Spear Chucker]

Having run a number of grain screeners/dressers and driers over the years, any self respecting deer would lay up in anything other than barley. Barley itch is no fun.
Having said that, because of the dry conditions, winter Barley is showing far longer straw in many areas than wheat, so potentially offers far better cover. I suspect we will have a straw/forage shortage in the coming months.
Where I am in the SE, fallow are venturing into places hitherto ignored in search of grass. It will be interesting to see if we have an early rut, and what the condition of the deer will be when they start.

 

[Jamie956]

Yep 'barley horns' as they are known round here are a PITA which is another reason I wondered
I shot one yesterday and he was at one point walking down a farm track between spring barley and winter wheat, as it started to rain (typically when i found something to stalk) he opted for the winter wheat, which made sense

 

[VSS]

Yep 'barley horns' as they are known round here

Awns, surely? Never heard them referred to as horns!

 

[Spear Chucker]

Awns, surely? Never heard them referred to as horns!

Probably local colloquialisms. Sea trout, peel, sewin, etc. Technically Awns are the correct terminology, Probably originating with a botanist who'd never worked a screener. I'd wager that "horns" Probably originates from those that have

 

[Jamie956]

Yeah it's definitely awns, daft phone turned 'orns into horns and I didn't notice

 

[Heym SR20]

Saw a buck this evening lying up in a field of Oats. Ready made porridge methinks!