Mule Deer

Odocoileus hemionus

A mule deer is easily recognized by its large ears and black-tipped tail. Although deer usually are active in early morning and evening, they can often be seen in the wild during the daytime. They are very skittish and easily frightened away. They flee with a unique feet-together bounding gait, all four hooves landing and taking off at the same time. The deer will escape to the cover of the forest. They are also strong swimmers. Only bucks grow antlers, which are seldom used for defense from predators. They serve to intimidate rivals rather than harm them. They are not used in head-on clashes. The antlers have two or more basically equal branches; the size varies with age and locality. They are shed in January and new ones grow in spring. The antlers are supplied with nerves and blood vessels that provide the growing antlers with food and oxygen. They are covered with moss like skin called ‘velvet.’ As the antlers harden, the blood supply is shut off, and the velvet dried. The animals begin rubbing off velvet in autumn. Deer have few enemies other than humans. Their only regular predator is the cougar; coyote predation is limited to fawn or small adults.

Family:

Cervidae (deer)

Description:

Mule deer are a medium sized deer. They are reddish in summer, gray brown in winter. The ears are dark, face grayish. The tail is black tipped; dorsal surface sometimes also black. Young fawns are spotted for three to four months. Bucks are 3 ½ feet at the shoulder, 4 to 6 feet in length. The average bucks weigh 200 to 250 pounds and the does weigh 100-150 pounds. Size and weight vary considerably depending upon habitat conditions.

Habitat:

Mule deer are remarkably adaptive to a wide range of habitat. They are typically found in coniferous forests, desert shrub, chaparral and grasslands with shrubs. Found primarily at the forest edge–near fields, meadows, rather than in dense forest. Mule deer are migratory; in fall they move to lower elevations where food is more readily available. They may migrate 50 miles or more from summer range to lowlands when breeding begins, usually in October.

Range:

Mule deer are found throughout most of western North America from Canada through Baja California.They are absent from the San Joaquin Valley and southeastern deserts of California.

Diet:

Mule deer are a small ruminant with limited ability to digest highly fibrous roughage. They are browsers, feeding on twigs, buds, and leaves of shrubs and small trees. Favored plants are bitterbush, snowbush, blackberry, huckleberry. They consume 2 pounds of food and 2-3 quarts of water per 100 pounds of weight daily.

Breeding:

Mating occurs in late summer, into fall. One or two spotted fawns are born in May or June after roughly a 204 day gestation period. Fawns can weigh from 16 to 18 pounds. They are usually able to walk a few minutes after birth.

Comments:

The male deer is called a buck and the female is a doe.

mtm 2-25-21/ok

Photo by Colin Barrows