Ever wonder what deer teeth look like? Naw, me neither.
But when my brother handed me a set of teeth at a party at his house I automatically took them and gave them a look over thinking this is an odd party favor. When he told me his friend (a hunter) told him they were deer teeth I honestly didn't believe it. So I looked it up on line. It would appear to be true. Who would have thought that deer would have such sharp teeth? And why do they have such sharp teeth anyway?
I also discovered (somewhat to my horror) that there are members of the deer family out there that have fangs! The Chinese Water Deer is one.( The Chinese water deer is native to southeast China and Korea, but has been introduced to France and the UK.)
(Isn't he a scary little bugger??)
And there are about 100 types of deer(without fangs), including the whitetail deer, reindeer, elk, moose, mule deer, black tail deer and caribou. They are able to run up to 40 miles and hour and they are also good swimmers.
Deer are classified as herbivores, which means they eat grass, leaves, stems, shoots (sometimes tender ones from your garden, right?), herbs, acorns, mushrooms, wild fruit (your apple trees are fair game too), and crops like corn and soy beans. The variety of foods they eat make it necessary for them to have some teeth that serve the purpose of tearing as well as the basic grinding. They are also 'ruminants' (cud chewers) and have a four-chambered stomach! (did you just think of cows?) Other ruminants include cattle, goats and antelope.
They start eating in the morning but they hardly chew their food. (neither do my dogs!) It goes into the first stomach, sits there while they rest and will move to the second stomach where it forms little balls. Then they bring it back up to the mouth and chew it. (sounds gross doesn't it). The chewed food will then go into the third and fourth stomachs. I bet that's a lot more info than you expected or wanted.
The life expectancy of deer is about 20 years but I wonder how many actually make it that far. Perhaps the ones that don't live around humans will live longer, but if they live around our towns and highways a lot of them end up dead on the side of the road. How sad it is that that is the way we most often see them. And if I happen to see any deer standing somewhere or trying to cross the street the first thing I think of is I hope nobody hits you baby. Just last year I witnessed a beautiful young buck get hit in the road in front of my house. He didn't die but he was mortally wounded. I called the police to shoot him, which thankfully they did. And another cop came by and asked if I wanted the body. I didn't (besides being traumatized by seeing him get hit and flail around for awhile trying to get up, I don't like the taste of deer meat) he took him off to dress it and pop in his freezer. I had to be content knowing that at least the deer meat wasn't being wasted. The cop that took the body was ecstatic to get such a fresh kill.
I wonder what he would have thought if the deer had fangs.
