Roes really hate reds!

Sunrise Stalker

Well-Known Member
Went for a stalk after work on Monday - a very quiet first hour with nothing about, not even a glimpse of a deer, then saw a couple of roe bedded up in some thick cover not too far from a footpath. I stalked round to get closer and into a good position, usually I shoot off sticks but because the land dropped away beneath me I got down on the ground with a nice tree trunk as a stable base for my .308. Usually, I can get impatient, but I made myself just relax and take in the sounds of the forest and waited... Then the roe both started to move, browsing as they headed towards a clearing where I focused my rifle should one of them be a buck....suddenly they both bolted out of the glade. Damn! Could they have winded me? Did a dog walker spook them? No, a red hind and a spiker following her came up the hill - I didn't realise roes hate reds so much but they were well gone. Lucky me - managed to drop my last red of the season....
 

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Jack Warr, the head keeper at Melbury Park a few years ago, once told me that if Roe got into the deer park, where there were Reds, Fallow and Pere David's, they usually died.
 
Both roe and reds on the ground I stalk, never noticed any friction between them. They'll quite happily feed along side each other.

I have seen - and im sure i have it recorded somewhere - reds chase and try and stamp on a roe buck - it was crazy to see - lucky for the roe it jumped the fences and was off
 
Asked by a chap who had stalking local on a farm where have farmed reds … to take out a roe doe that was in the park with reds … small woods in park and when roe came out reds would chase it round rest of park wasn’t pretty watching … I managed to remove the roe doe

Paul
 
Red stag and a spiker in the field above our house just now. Reds just wandered past a roe and respective species grazing happily not far from each other.
 
Would it come down to available feeding ? I recall seeing a group of hinds running up a hill and stopping dead in their tracks, a hill roe and her two offspring in their way. Funny beasties.
 
Roe tend to be affected by other deer, except if sharing with smaller deer, Muntjac and CWD. They seem to tolerate to a certain extent Fallow, but the bigger the numbers the less one see's of Roe. Roe in Scotland also seem to tolerate Reds, but I have no experience of this in England.

Domestic stock they tend to avoid, especially sheep for some reason. But Sika, they do not hang around too long. Over the past 38 years I have noticed in the highlands the decline of Roe numbers around areas where Sika have moved in, to the point of where its rare to see one.
 
I have seen roe in with sheep - but very specifically nicking their hard-feed during a harsh winter. Once they'd fed they didn't hang around
 
Roe tend to be affected by other deer, except if sharing with smaller deer, Muntjac and CWD. They seem to tolerate to a certain extent Fallow, but the bigger the numbers the less one see's of Roe. Roe in Scotland also seem to tolerate Reds, but I have no experience of this in England.

Domestic stock they tend to avoid, especially sheep for some reason. But Sika, they do not hang around too long. Over the past 38 years I have noticed in the highlands the decline of Roe numbers around areas where Sika have moved in, to the point of where its rare to see one.
I've always understood that deer and even rabbits sometimes avoid land where sheep are grazed because sheep are constantly crapping and peeing it taints the grass.
Locally, roe disappear from fields where sheep are but return after a couple of weeks when they are removed.
 
I have seen roe in with sheep - but very specifically nicking their hard-feed during a harsh winter. Once they'd fed they didn't hang around
Someone I know took a video a few months back of a wild fallow pricket coming to the troughs and actually feeding from them alongside their sheep. I was very surprised to see it, as in my experience wild fallow really detest sheep, even to the point of avoiding land where sheep have recently been grazing.
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Regional variations apply; when the roe who here share one particular glen bottom with red deer become wary and slink back to the forest, it more often than not presages the arrival of the red deer. Generally speaking, hereabouts the roe prefer the tranquility of feeding among themselves without the stress of the larger animals in their proximity. One species is of a nervous demeanour, the other of a cautious one.
 
Someone I know took a video a few months back of a wild fallow pricket coming to the troughs and actually feeding from them alongside their sheep. I was very surprised to see it, as in my experience wild fallow really detest sheep, even to the point of avoiding land where sheep have recently been grazing.
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I’ve been told often but my ground has roe, fallow and sheep but not mixing much. I always giggled seeing Fallow in the Sheep pens by the car parks at the Midland Game Fair
 
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