Red Deer
Red deer are native to Great Britain with the majority of the UK population found here in the Scottish Highlands. Our red deer are from farmed stock and are kept in the fields and rough grazing on our extensive hill farm.
Although generally seen on open hill they are in fact a forest animal and would prefer sheltered woodland areas particularly in the winter time as oppose to windswept hillsides.
Red deer on Wild Farm are originally from farm and park stock so they are larger and grow larger antlers than the hill deer. We obtained our original breeding hinds in the autumn of 1998 from a small deer farm at Echt, Aberdeenshire. They came to us ‘in calf’ and so the following spring we virtually doubled our herd size. During the winter of 1998 we bought a stag calf from Warnham Deer Park and that stag became our main breeding stag for a number of years. At his prime he had a magnificent set of antlers that had 38 points when cast weighed 20lbs!
Our Red deer hinds calve in May and early June. For the first few days the calves hide in tall grass and nettles before they find their feet and join the main group. Over the summer the hinds suckle their calves and at about 6 weeks old the calves begin to graze. Stags cast their old antlers at the end of the winter and immediately begin to grow their new ones. Stags can be quite aggressive during the rut, so it is important to be aware of this change in behaviour. Red deer will happily graze on normal grass fields and during the winter months eat high quality silage and root vegetables such as carrots, potatoes and swedes.
Red deer are very easy to keep, but like most deer they need 6ft high fencing to keep them in.They willingly come through gateways and can be easily encouraged to move between fields by feed. Once the stags have stripped the velvet and have boney antlers they should be treated with respect as they can be dangerous.
With a suitable handling system they can have their antlers cut off (painlessly) which makes them far less dangerous and helps to prevent damage to fences. The hinds can become quite tame, delightful to hand feed and not at all dangerous. Indeed a couple of tame hinds can be strategic as they help to encourage the rest of the herd to come up during feed time.
We always have Red deer available for sale, stag and hind calves, mature breeding hinds and young stags. We are able to handle our Red deer relatively easily with the best time of year to catch and move Red deer being middle to end November to March.
