A friend in the hill country noticed some of his whitetail have reddish brown and some more gray color to their pelts.
Is it age --sex--genetics---- diet ????
Anybody have a theory?
Thanks, Lee

Time of year will change the color of their coats. I notice a reddish coat in the summer and gray or tan in the winter.

Both colors are seen together last week.
How about some of them shed different times of the year?

What Wendell said.

It seems to be an odd year in the Hill Country for seasonal changes. The live oaks typically lose their leaves fairly rapidly starting in early March and regrow them by mid-April. This year I notice that most of them have held on to last year's leaves rather late, and new leaves are sprouting and maturing even before the old leaves fall! Strange!

I think the observed mixture of gray and red deer coats is a result of some shedding their gray winter hair earlier than others.

I've also observed that stressed deer tend to have lighter-colored coats and healthy deer a deeper color. The continuing drought may be having an effect on deer color.

Seeing as it was an extremely dry and warm winter, and this weeks temps are predicted to be 15 degrees above the seasonal norms, it's no wonder plants and animals are confused.

I find Whitetail antlers starting in February. Last week I saw two Whitetail bucks with both antlers still firmly attached.

I saw a young Mulie buck with both his antlers this weekend as well.

Age, I believe, is the biggest determining factor dictating when they drop, relative to others in the same area. geography and health play a role as well.

until last week i never knew that texas deer were so much different in color then virginia deer , a friend of mine is a taxidermist . he mounted 2 texas whitetails last week that had no white on them at all, and they were almost gray. these deer also had the shortest hair on them i've ever seen. they were pretty ,with that short hair the muscle tone really stands out on a mount.

Here at Heavens Doorstep Exotic Game Ranch in Mt. Home, Texas , we also have reddish colored
& grey colored whitetail deer. These are the colors all year around. There are reddish (light or dark) depending on the time of year along with the gray color (light or dark) depending on the time of year.
I would like to know also why there are different colors in whitetails all times of the year.