Living with Deer.3

Now that you know about the matriarch doe (Old Mamma), I have a story about her daughter that just happened this past early summer. She was in the pink of health and very pregnant early in June. Some days later I saw she’d had two beautiful fawns. She had raised two very spunky fawns 2 years ago: a male and female, who still remain inseparable and are quite healthy.

But trouble began shortly after last spring’s fawns arrived. She showed up in my front yard, as her mamma had done when she was in trouble. She could not graze because she had a huge swelling in her nose, possibly an abscess (in photo below, you see her swollen nose). She was desperate for food. Her udder was nearly empty, and her babies were crying constantly for nourishment. Her babies, also desperate, lost their necessary wildness and didn’t hide from me as they should have.

I sprang into action and tried one thing after another so that she could get something down her throat. She could not grasp food with her lower lips. The item that worked best was chunks of grain cakes I routinely make for my parrots – very nourishing and filling – and when she could get the food in her mouth, she’d then raise her head high and let the food slide down to where her molars could break it up.

It took me three days to get the right combination of size and composition so that she could get most of it down. Before then it was hit or miss. It was frustrating and emotionally draining to watch the fawns try to nurse and the mamma unable to feed them adequately. And if you’ve never heard a fawn bleating from hunger, you’re lucky. It’s heartbreaking!

When I called the Oregon Fish & Game Dept, they said to let nature take its course. Sorry, not good enough for me! But even so, despite my daily efforts to ply the mamma with food, one of the fawns did not make it.

Not long after this, the tide turned. I looked out of my window one early morning, and the mamma’s nose swelling was down. Her milk bag was FULL.

She was exhausted and was resting where she knew it was safe. And the remaining fawn lived! Well, until it was weaned. Unfortunately, the fawn had been born with a jaw deformity that didn’t allow it to grasp grasses and fallen leaves. And so, one day, it just disappeared. I often wonder where these animals go to die so quietly. Well, this time we lost.