Deer: Nature’s Masters of Cold Weather Endurance

When temperatures drop in the winter, most people stay indoors to keep warm. If you live in an area where it gets really cold, you may wrap yourself in a blanket and sip some tea or hot chocolate.

While you have a cozy place to stay indoors, wild animals have to find ways to stay warm outdoors. Deer is just one example. Have you ever wondered how deer remain warm in the winter when it gets bitterly cold and windy? Do they hibernate like bears, snakes, and skunks? Where do they sleep in the winter?

Get ready to find out how deer stay warm over the cold weather months, along with other interesting facts about these majestic animals.

How Do Deer Stay Warm in the Winter?

These hoofed creatures are hardy animals able to endure cold weather. In fact, biologists have discovered many different ways that deer stay warm in the winter.

In the autumn, white-tailed deer and other deer species consume more food to add an extra layer of fat to their body. This is a behavior common among many animals living in areas where it gets very cold in the winter. Along with eating more food, these mammals begin to eat different types of foods.

A deer’s winter coat has guard hairs over a thick undercoat that helps keep its body warm during winter. Deer are well-insulated, which helps them retain body heat in cold weather, but they are not completely immune to extreme cold conditions. Deer have adaptations that help them withstand cold temperatures, but they can still be affected by extreme cold and snow.

Staying Warm with a New Coat

A special coat helps deer to stay warm in the wintertime. In the fall season, this animal sheds the coat it has had all spring and summer. It begins to grow a new, much thicker coat in preparation for winter weather.

The design of this mammal’s winter coat has a lot to do with how it stays warm and dry. The top layer of its coat is made up of hollow guard hairs. When snow or rain hits the guard hairs in a deer’s coat, the moisture just slides off. This keeps the coat from becoming soaked with moisture. That’s a good thing, especially when temperatures are dropping fast!

The hollow nature of this animal’s guard hairs also serves the purpose of trapping heat near its body. If a deer were a house, its hollow guard hairs would be the insulation in its walls. Some scientists who spend time observing these animals have reported seeing thin layers of snow on the backs of several deer. The snow doesn’t melt due to its coat of hollow guard hairs.

Moving Less to Stay Warm

As with many other types of animals, the behavior of deer changes in the winter months. In the warm spring and summer months, you may see deer running around, playing, or eating in a field. Their physical activity slows down a lot in the winter. A deer becomes less active causing its metabolism to slow down. In fact, it decreases its activity level by about fifty percent.

When an animal’s metabolism slows down, it doesn’t require as much food as it would with a normally functioning metabolism. This is helpful especially when food is scarce in the wintertime.

Finding Warm Shelter

Finding appropriate shelter is another way that deer stay warm in the winter. They search for areas where the cold winds are blocked and where they have shelter from above. This could be in a conifer forest or at the edge of a field.

A deer yard may contain dozens or more deer. They are all there to get protection from the cold and share the body heat of the other deer in a herd. In addition, there is likely to be a large food source in the vicinity of the deer yard. This is another reason why deer gather there!