white tail deer with gray/black hair

[engineerbrian]

hey fellas

bear with me since this may be an easy question for some of you, but i'm more of a shooter and than a hunter (really i only hunt to hang out with the guys and shoot my guns)

In the last year or so i've noticed a few white tail deer in the early season with mostly gray/black hair. this really seams odd since i'm used to seeing deer with all brown hair. What gives, do i have some kind of mutated deer running around on my property?

Brian

 

[jbkebert]

Deer facts - Deer vary in color shadings from area to area. This also varies with the current season after coat change twice a year. New spring coats are bright reddish-brown solid, thin hair. As winter approaches the hair is replaced with a bulky winter fur with shades from bluish to a dull gray-brown. The winter fur is long and wavy, and filled with air that provides excellent insulation. I northern climates it is not unusual to see deer walking around with loose snow on their backs due to the good insulating properties of the winter coat.

http://www.diy-hunting-and-outdoors.com/whitetail-deer.html

The closer you get to winter the more deer will turn Gray/Brown. This serves a couple of purposes. #1 it is a thicker coat of fur much like your dog will put on a heavier coat of fur in the fall and winter and will shed in the spring.
#2 it helps to camoflage the deer better with the now gray brown tones of the woods after the trees shed their leaves.

 

[hardluk1]

jekebert Is spot on on color changes through the year . Also if you do see deer with some black hair around ears, tail and maybe forhead it can also show some of the wisconson blood lines that run through most of our deer. Back when there were not many deer around some of the wisconson deer herds were used around our country to "start " new heards.

 

[FLAvalanche]

Our whitetail down here in this area are quite red all year long. They really don't need that winter coat.

A buddy of mine was hanging his tree stands down in Naples last week and saw a melanistic deer which is all black except for the white of it's tail. They're even more rare than an albino or piebald.

You were probably just seeing the natural color change of deer. It's possible you were seeing several melanistic deer but the chances are slim. It's a genetic abnormality that can be passed to young but like I said it's very, very rare.

 

[DIM]

could that be Sitka Deer more known as Sitka Black-tailed Deer??? But their habitat is on the West Coast....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Odocoileus_hemionus_6216.JPG

 

[hardluk1]

Flavalanche Grew up in Naples. Can you say to hot to enjoy hunting. Many deer would rut and loss theer racks before the season started. Primary rut could be in september or earlier. So many good area's closed to huntes or restricted to where you can travel. I have seen some of the black edged deer in the Bear Island unit some years

 

[FLAvalanche]

Flavalanche Grew up in Naples. Can you say to hot to enjoy hunting. Many deer would rut and loss theer racks before the season started. Primary rut could be in september or earlier. So many good area's closed to huntes or restricted to where you can travel. I have seen some of the black edged deer in the Bear Island unit some years

They started archery the last weekend of September this year in Charlotte County. The deer are clearly rutting.

That black deer was spotted in the Picayune Strand WMA in Collier County. I believe hunting starts there this weekend.

 

[hardluk1]

Well atleast now they have a chance of killing something with horns, just hotter.. Loved the swamps just hated the heat sfter 40 years. And all the control the park service put on the lands. Sold the boat,buggy and airboat and moved to the Nc mountians. Still lots of hogs up in the North Port area. Use to be you could ride up that way and see hogs all the time along the interstate and area's along the road sides. Do miss all the piggy's

 

[jimmyraythomason]

Our deer in North-Central Alabama are "in the red" during the summer months. They take on a grey/dark grey coloring as the season changes to fall. I have seen some very dark grey whitetails. Rut here is typically two times per year. A minor rut between Christmas and New Years but the major,no-holds barred,rut is during the last 2 weeks of January.