Facts about Whitetail Deer & Whitetail Deer Hunting. Want to know more?
- Based on hunter reports, about 1 deer in 30,000 is an albino.
- The speed at which antlers grow, also makes them the fastest growing structures in the animal kingdom.
- Antler growth is usually complete by the end of August
- The deer genus was given the name Odocoileus by Rafinesque in 1832
- A doe giving birth in areas of good food will have twins. However triplets are common as well as occasional quadruplets.
- Largest body weight on record of a Whitetail deer is 511 pounds.
- Recent estimates put the deer population in the United States at around 30 million animals
- The whitetail deer (Odocoileus virginianus), is named for it’s signature tail and the white under part.
- According to scientists there are 38 Sub-species of Whitetail Deer.
- A whitetail buck usually weighs 130 to 220 pounds, but have been recorded at well over 350 Pounds.
- Market gunning, unregulated hunting and poor land-use practices severely depressed deer populations in the early 1900s. By about 1930 the U.S. population was thought to number about 300,000 animals.
- A Whitetail buck will shed his antlers every year, usually sometime in late December through Feb.
- Whitetails have an average life span of 8 to 11 years.
- Deer do not have a gall bladder on their livers. This allows them to eat vegetation that would kill domestic animals.
- The members of the deer family are ruminants, having a four-compartmented stomach, which allows the deer to feed very rapidly.
- A Whitetail has a top speed between 35 to 40 miles per hour.
- A deer’s gestation period is 200 to 205 days, most of the fawns being born in the latter part of May or the first part of June.
- Deer need 10 to 12 pounds of food per day to satisfy their needs.
- The Whitetail Deer is the most abundant big game animal in North America.
- The average whitetail stands between 36 and 40 inches high at the top of the shoulder.
- There is one authenticated record of a deer kept in captivity that lived to be nineteen years old.
- A deer can clear an 8-foot hurdle from a standing position.
- Deer swim well and at a good pace. They have been clocked at speeds up to 13 miles per hour.
- At birth a baby doe weighs about 4 1/2 pounds while a buck weighs 5 1/2 pounds.
- By the time the fawns are twenty minutes old, they can walk slowly on very shaky legs.
- About 40 percent of the young does may breed in their first autumn so that they give birth when they are one year old.