My five pointer red deer skull

Three months ago Dad and I were walking in Titus Well wood, and we explored a spot where the gamekeeper throws away deer heads and lower legs. It is a steep slope in a pine forest sloping down from a forest track, and it has been a good place to find lots of red deer skulls including my spiker skull. Three of my stag skulls on my shed came from this spot.

This skull was difficult to spot because it had got caught on the bottom of a pine tree at the top of the slope. When I found it it still has some skin and flesh on it and goo in the braincase..

It still needed time to rot down so rather than leave it where it was I moved it to a secret part of the wood away from the track. I knew there was going to be a lot of forestry workers in the wood soon and I didn't want anyone else to find it. A month later I went back for it and it was cleaned up

When it was home I cleaned it by leaving it in biological washing powder solution. It didn't take much cleaning up at all.

It has all six adult teeth through, which it means it was at least 30 months old. The antlers look like a third or fourth set of antlers, which would make it four or five years old. 

The pedicles aren't tall and thin (like the spiker skull which was 20 months old) but they aren't as short and thick like Roger's who was older. Pedicles start out long and thin and get shorter and fatter as the deer gets older.

When we collected it we took all the incisors we could find, but we old found five. The skull was sitting on all the rotted flesh and fur that had fallen off it, and the incisors are quite small but it was still a shame not to get them all.

The antlers had a really good colour which you don't get if they had been lying around for too long. The brow tines (which are the point that stick forward at the base) were really big.

It has an odd number of points because the left antler was broken at the top but the other one is in a perfect point.

I haven't seen a red deer with antlers exactly like this, but this is the closest one I have seen. It was in a wood a few miles away from where I found this skull.

The biggest number of points I have on one of my red deer skulls is seven points, and I have lots of two pointers, four pointers and six pointers as well. One of the five skulls I said I wanted to get this year is a red deer skull with more than eight points but I haven't found one yet !

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