Red deer

In the Scandinavian Wildlife Park you can meet the impressive red deer in the huge red deer park, where you can walk through the facility on the landscaped paths. The red deer know that guests only walk on the paths, and therefore relax completely out on the grass. Every year we have guests sitting on a bench, a few meters from a calving doe, and watch a calf being born. In the autumn, the red deer’s rut ​​can be experienced, and the mighty roar of the deer can be heard throughout the park. The life cycle of the red deer follows the course of the year The red deer come into rut early in the autumn. Approximately 8 months later, in May/June, the calves are born, just when nature is most abundant in fresh, young grass. For the first few months, the calves live mainly on the doe’s milk, but already a few weeks old they begin to graze themselves. By the end of the summer they get most of their nutritional needs from the grass, and they can now largely fend for themselves. The doe’s milk production decreases, and she prepares for a new rutting period, which falls, while nature is full of autumn fruits. When the young animals are 15 – 18 months old, they come into rut for the first time. The red deer has large and beautiful antlers. The young deer calves get their first antlers after about 10 months. These antlers consist of 10-25 cm unbranched tips (pointed deer). A two-year-old deer has antlers with 2-4 points. In older red deer, the number of points increases, but it is a myth that you can directly count the age by the number of points. The number depends much more on the strength and energy surplus of the deer that year. 20 or more points on a red deer antler are not uncommon.