The roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) is a fairly common small deer -like with a height of 63 to 67 centimeter. The head-body length is 95 to 140 centimeter, they weigh 16 to 35 kilograms.

They have a sandy yellow to reddish brown summer coat, that in winter is darker and gray. Adult animals have no dots. They have a white to yellowish body stain (Gorget patch) and a circular white spot on their back: the caudal patch.
The nose is black, and the chin is white.

The roe is up to twenty years, but in the wild usually only seven or eight years old.

The buck (male) is slightly larger than the doe (female) and has simple antlers, up to 25 centimeters at most three points, never more than two branches per stem.
It does not consist of antler horn but solid bone. It is re- formed in the winter each year, and is then covered by a soft, hairy skin (velvet).
The bark skin is sanded to branches between March and June.
The older bucks do this earlier (February / early March), the younger bucks later.
Between October and January, the antlers shed.

The deer is a selective herbivore. Between eating and rumination is usually one (in summer) to two hours (in winter). The nibbler eats mainly easily digestible and most nutritious growth points of blackberries, shoots, berries, twigs, buds and shoots of shrubs and trees, herbs, grasses, leaves, nuts, mushrooms, grains, crops etc..
In autumn they also eat acorns.
In winter, it uses 30-40% less food, especially buds and twigs. The number of feeding periods is then cut in half and they are significantly less active.

Roe deer generally live solitary.
During winter there are herding, with winter mobs from 3 to 8 pieces.
The deer are active at dusk, and from September to April, mainly overnight.
She runs fast but has little stamina. They jump and swim well.

Roe is the only cloven-hoofed that has a length of gestation. Oestrus and mating time are in July and August, but only the end of December, after 150 days, the embryo will develop. Another 144 days later, in late May, early June the fawn is born.
Does that were not pregnant in October will in the summer become for a second time in heat. They then have no length of gestation, their fawn are thus dropped around the same time.

Three-quarters of all births are twins. The fawn at birth weighs 1.3 to 2.3 kilograms and has a brownish black coat with rows of white spots on the back and flanks. On the upper lip you see a black mustache. After six weeks the stains, fading in October, they're gone.
Weaning takes six to ten weeks. Young fawn are weaned at around six to ten times a day a few minutes, older ones only two to three times daily. The rest of the time, the calves stay alone, but are not left. The roe is always nearby. Twins suck separately, about twenty meters apart.
Fawns remain the first 10 days in coverage and nearly do not move.
The natural enemies are stray dogs, fox and wild boar. Less natural: people, traffic, buildings...

The bed is a small, faint pit, a tossing place.
The deer uses slots: regularly or frequently walked tracks or trails.
The hoof prints of deer are 3-4 cm wide, the length is 4.5 cm or more. Including dew claws  the prints are up to 7 cm long. The distance between prints is up to 140 cm as the deer runs trot.

The difference between a roe and a deer
There are forty species, 16 genera and four subfamilies deer.
The males have antlers that they shed annually. New antlers are usually larger and more complex than the previous. There is no fixed relationship between age and antler.

In the Benelux, we have the deer (largest, up to 250 kg and 140 cm at the withers), fallow deer (rare, up to 130 kg) and roe (smallest, up to 30 kg and 67 cm height). Red deer and fallow deer often live in groups.

After sanding the antler shows yellowish white bone. Roe gets darker antlers, on red deer points remain white.
Connoisseurs recognize a deer antlers, even after the change (s). On the antler shape they also see the origin (country (region)).

The antlers of the deer are upright standing and singular branches.
To the number of tips or tines we speak of a 5: five pointer (rack) 8: eight pointer,….
A fallow deer has to 6 branches, of which the last two blade -shaped.
The buck (roe) has a simple antler of about 25cm with up to three branches per rod.

The tail of the roe is very small and is only visible as a she does her need.

Difference between horn and antler

Antlers are two frontal bones of male deer. (Only a reindeer female has antler.) The branched antlers consists of bare bone. It feels cold and lifeless. It is formed every year.
Antlers can be distorted after heating (boiling, steaming). Antler is less fragile than bone.


Horn is the hard material of hooves, beaks, nails and the outer horns. It consists mainly of the tough, insoluble protein keratin (hair).
A ‘horn ‘consists of a living horn cores, with around it dermis and epidermis with a dead horny layer of compacted hair. The cavities in the horn cores are in connection with the nasal cavities.
Horns are pointed and can be straight, curved or twisted, smooth or ribbed. They are permanent and unbranched.

The horn of the rhinoceros is pure keratin. The giraffe has a slightly different form.
The `horn` of a narwhal is tusk.