Roe doe with antlers

HarryG

Member
Hi everyone - I got this roe doe with tiny antlers at the weekend. Have other members seen this and is this unusual? She is the left hand deer in this picture. Head half prepped is the other photo and as you can see there is nothing wrong with the venison! She was carrying twins, weighed in at 17kg, teeth are very worn and was in excellent condition. I don’t think I’ve seen one with more fat ever. The young buck with her was 13kg.

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Sounds like she’s an elderly doe, with a hormone imbalance and increasing levels of testosterone resulting in antler development. Not particularly unusual - think of it as the roe counterpart to old ladies growing whiskers!

I shot one a couple of years ago - it’s one of the few heads in recent years that I’ve bothered mounting.

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Hi everyone - I got this roe doe with tiny antlers at the weekend. Have other members seen this and is this unusual? She is the left hand deer in this picture. Head half prepped is the other photo and as you can see there is nothing wrong with the venison! She was carrying twins, weighed in at 17kg, teeth are very worn and was in excellent condition. I don’t think I’ve seen one with more fat ever. The young buck with her was 13kg.

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Sounds like she’s an elderly doe, with a hormone imbalance and increasing levels of testosterone resulting in antler development. Not particularly unusual - think of it as the roe counterpart to old ladies growing whiskers!

I shot one a couple of years ago - it’s one of the few heads in recent years that I’ve bothered mounting.

View attachment 404569
As you say not that uncommon. They never cast and are always in velvet.
 
As the guys say above, not that uncommon in roe (much rarer in other species) - I think I worked it out last year as about 1 in 100 of all the roe I have shot. All bar one of them was old.

I guess about 19/20 examples are 'in velvet' but they can produce 'hard horn.'
 
As stated not that uncommon, I've shot 3 over the years.
Older does and still fertile, one was carrying twins.
 
As the guys say above, not that uncommon in roe (much rarer in other species) - I think I worked it out last year as about 1 in 100 of all the roe I have shot. All bar one of them was old.

I guess about 19/20 examples are 'in velvet' but they can produce 'hard horn.'
I shot one some years ago that was in hard horn (thought it was poor buck), plus she was carrying one foetus. I did have a photo. sadly can't find it.
 
It does happen. I do know of one SD member who shot such doe as one of his DSC2 stalks a number of years ago. It was in the middle of winter and at a time when the bucks finished 20th October.

I believe the assessor raised an eyebrow after the shot. Our Hero quietly explained that he had confirmed it was a doe before he squeezed the trigger through the lack of any penis.

On close inspection his original observations proved correct.
 
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Friend shot a very old buck on my ground a few years ago. His antlers were no bigger than those in this post. His teeth were pretty much gone and hip joint almost fused with arthritis. He was hobbling along like a very old dog. He was the definition of going back.
 
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