Desert Mule Deer Hunting

Desert Mule Deer

(Odocoileus hemionus crooki)

Current SCI all time record (typical antlers): Score 221 3/8

Current SCI all time record (non-typical antlers): Score 266 2/8 - Sonora, Hermosillo - 1/97

Description: The mule deer gets its name from its large ears. Coat color is reddish-brown in summer, turning to a blue-gray in winter. Its forehead is much darker than its face, while its throat, belly and inner leg surfaces are white. Mule deer have white rump patches and short, narrow, black-tipped white tails.

Typical mule deer antler configuration has each side branching equally into two main beams, each may fork into two tines.

Other Common Names:

Size:

Range: Southern California, Arizona, and New Mexico plus western Texas and northern Mexico; primarily November-January.

Natural History: The size and number of 'points' is dependent on a combination of age, nutrition, and genetic background. The antlers grow under a layer of skin called velvet. The velvet supplies blood to the growing antlers, which are soft. When fully grown, the antlers harden, the velvet dries, and is rubbed off. Antlers are composed of material similar to that of bone. Each year in the spring, after the breeding season has passed, antlers are shed. It is in preparation for the rut that mule deer grow antlers. Bucks are polygamous and fight for a harem of does during the winter breeding season.

After a gestation period of about 190 days, the does give birth to spotted fawns, often twins. Fawns are 'dropped' about mid-summer. At higher elevations the fawns are born early after the last spring storms to allow the young to grow large enough to withstand the winter storms. At lower, drier elevations, drop time is synchronized more with summer rains that bring on new plant growth. A fawn's spots will disappear in about two months and the young will stay with their mother until the following spring. They will become sexually mature in a year and a half. In the wild deer have a life span of about ten years.

Behavior: Deer feed on grasses and forbs in the spring and summer, however, they are primarily browsers. They eat such items as twigs, bark, buds, leaves, and nuts. Important plants in a mule deer's diet include mountain-mahogany, buckbrush, cliffrose, sagebrush, buckthorn, juniper, and oak. Most feeding is done at dawn and dusk, although human activity may cause a shift to more feeding at night.

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