| These photos of the elk and red deer are from throughout the year, and show Cervus elaphus's passion for water.
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| Cooling it.
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| The deer in this group look like they want to go, but look at the same time reluctant to leave the water. |
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| This group on the other hand is not wasting any time getting away. Hogs included. |
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This is a very dominant red deer that broke his left antler at the base in spring
when it was just a short stalk. We were surprised that he had this
much growth--he is even growing out a triple crown on this amazing antler
(On the Mishaps 2
page you can see the stages of its abnormal growth.) As you can see,
he loves swimming in the water. |
 
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| A nice, restful soak...until the party gets crashed.
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Another deer looking for a cooling bath.
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This was March in our quarantine pens. His antlers are just
large, velvet nubs. I believe the water is going into the side pocket
of his cheek and squirting out the front of his mouth. |
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These huge deer smashed the buried irrigation heads providing themselves
with wallow holes. It was actually more like a jacuzzi as water continued
to jet into the hole from below.
Patches of their winter coats are still clinging in clumps.
Here's a closeup of the winter hair coat; it's stiff like a scrub brush.
The first clump I encountered was so tightly bound together that I
thought I'd picked up an amputated tail! |
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| A simultaneous wallow and sprinkle...elk nirvana. |
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| My take on this is that the other deer is trying to crowd in order to eventually take over the wallow hole. |
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| An elk high velocity shampoo. |
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| First you study the water. Then you smack it with your hoof...hard! |
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| Then you look to see how high the water went. |
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| Then you look around to see how many of the other deer start jumping around. |
