Corkscrew antlers

Richard Prior is widely regarded as the world expert on roe deer

By Richard Prior

Sunday, 29 August 2010

Q)There are several small bucks on my ground that have miserable curly antlers. Apart from their size, though, they appear to be in good order. What is causing this condition? Is it genetic? Should I weed them all out and hope for improvement? This is quite good terrain, for Inverness-shire, with scrub woodland and damp low ground as well as hill. R. FRASER By email

A)The traditional belief is that twisted or “corkscrew” antlers are grown by bucks suffering from the liver fluke Fasciola hepatica, a leaf-shaped parasite that lives in the bile ducts of the liver. A number of animals carry them, including sheep, cattle, deer, rabbits and hares. Roe are more vulnerable to the effects of infestation than other deer species. A secondary host, the mud snail Limnea truncatula, is involved in the life cycle, so roe living in damp pastures, especially those used by cattle or sheep, are liable to pick up fl uke from the snails and suffer accordingly. Combined with harsh winter weather, they can be the cause of significant mortality in a roe population, let alone affecting their capacity to grow normal antlers the following spring.

Sadly, there is not much you can do, in practical terms, to surmount your trouble if, as I suspect, the cause is fluke. It would be worth investigating the livers of any shot deer to confirm this diagnosis. In the case of your environment, it is pointless trying to eliminate the corkscrew heads by selective shooting, though it is always a good policy to weed out poor specimens. You could perhaps look at the possibility of improving the feed higher up the hill so that the low ground is less attractive to the roe by planting, for example, willows as supplementary browse.