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The colourful autumn is coming to an end. Our graceful roe deer change their coats, depending on the weather winter hairs are added into the fur until Christmas but the bright rump patch mirror is already well visible.

 

The length of their outer coarse hairs will be somewhat over 5 centimetres during winter – the hairs are like small tubes and brittle. For keeping body warmth ”hollow hairs” are extremely well suited in our humid and changeable climate.

 

From the beginning of October the bucks lose their ”pride” – dropping the antlers has started and lasts until December. Younger specimens can already be wearing the first pencil-like stick antlers.

 

The time of plentiful summer food is coming to an end; the deer live in a transition period. There are still grasses and shrubs, easily accessible lichens and mosses. The stomach of the roe deer must get adapted to winter food – branches of shrubs and trees, buds and bark.