We had a couple of deer visit us this morning. This is the first time in a very long while. The city has a deer elimination program which is thinning the population way down so deer sightings are as rare as hens’ teeth.
We saw two today, a doe and a buck. I think the buck was full grown but fairly young. Somewhere along the way he had the misfortune to have his left antler broken off about 6 inches up from his skull. The other antler was fairly small and only had two points. He was skitterish and stayed well away from the house.
The doe was bigger. She was bolder and was right outside our kitchen window trying to lick up the few remaining sunflower seeds we put out for the squirrels. After a while she wandered off into the yard to relieve herself and this is the strange part. She clamped her ankles together and by ankles I mean the joints that are about 18 inches off the ground. Then she lowered her hips and started shuffling her rear feet backwards and forwards. She urinated on her ankles for a long time. Afterwards she licked herself clean, one ankle then the other. This went on a lot longer than the time it would actually take to clean herself off. Every aspect of this appeared to be deliberate, not just some careless accident.
I can only think this is some sort of territorial marking behavior, but why would she mark herself? Do any of you know what was going on?
I wish I had had my camera handy.
If Buddy Bill’s Bait Barn were open this winter, I would ask Bill or Clarice (his wife) what was going on. But alas they closed and won’t be open till spring. He did a hunting and fishing show on radio and she was an employee of DNR so they would have known. My theory, she was thirsty?
From my local deer expert-
It sounds like it was territorial, or just grooming, in this instance. It’s what you’d expect to see during the rut in late fall, but by now rutting and territorial marking behaviors are very rare. Males especially urinate on the tarsal glands located on the inside of the hocks as part of depositing hormonal and pheromonal “calling cards†from those glands on to the ground to attract mates.
Your brother-in-law’s ability to make the anatomical transposition between primates (us) and cervids (and digitigrade quadrupeds generally) is impressive. He calls them ankles, which the Merriam Webster online definition pasted below shows to have logic, whereas a lot of people call them knees because of how high they are off the ground, even though they bend the wrong way for knees.
If he lives north of us, the rut must be long over. If he lives way down south the rut can extend after the winter solstice, but I’ve never heard of it this late. It’s also time for bucks to be shedding their antlers, which are shed later the farther south one goes. It’s not uncommon for a spike buck (1 ½ years old) to have a single point on one side and a modest fork on the other. This is more common than for the single spike to have been broken; but of course anything’s possible-especially if he saw evidence of an actual break.
Chas.
Main Entry:
1hock
Pronunciation:
\ˈhäk\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Middle English hoch, hough, from Old English hÅh heel; akin to Old Norse hÄsin hock
Date:
1540
1 a: the tarsal joint or region in the hind limb of a digitigrade quadruped (as the horse) corresponding to the human ankle but elevated and bending backward — see HORSE illustration b: a joint of a fowl’s leg that corresponds to the hock of a quadruped2: a small cut of meat from a front or hind leg just above the foot