Babies Babies Babies

[JewelFreak]

Loved Lynnie's thread on her baby bunnies. Rather than threadjack it, here's a new one with our little "grandchildren." This is the 3rd year in a row we've had fawns born in our backyard. Love watching them run & buck & play. This year it was twins -- discovered when a tree guy was showing us one that needed to come down & tripped over what he thought was a stump. It turned out to be the tiny twins, not more than an hour old (I'm an expert on fawns nowadays)! Luckily they weren't hurt when he stepped on them.

Last year our maternity ward had 2 fawns born to different mothers, one 4 days after the other. So fascinating to watch -- the mothers shared nursing & mommy-ing duties.

Our yard is fenced & has woods at the back & side, great place to leave new babies -- predators can't get in (well, see below); they can't get out & lost. The moms come to nurse them, then when weaned they eat leaves & grass till they're big enough to jump the fence & trot off with the herd (at about 3 months).

This year we let them go early -- unbelievable! About 5 a.m. I glanced out the kitchen window while getting coffee -- and saw a RED FOX just flying across the yard at the fawns. (He was gorgeous too!) He cornered one in back, it baaa-ed in terror, but thank heaven I scared the fox off before he could make breakfast of it. They were 8 wks old then, not quite knee high. Since they weren't safe here anymore, we opened the gates & mama took them away with her. We had empty-nest syndrome for a week, missed our little pals, as we do every year.

These photos were taken w/a telescope lens -- they would never let us get this close!

--- Laurie

 

[Stone-cold11]

Cute!

 

[Loves Vintage]

Wow! Amazing photos! Thank you for sharing. What kind of deer are they?

 

[Kaleigh]

Great pics Jewelfreak.

 

[Brown.Eyed.Girl]

Oh my goodness how precious!!! I would love to have a fawn maternity ward in my backyard Thank you for the pictures - what adorable babies!

 

[Gailey]

What a wonderful place to live. Great photos JF!

 

[Skippy123]

Wow, so beautiful; thanks for sharing!

 

[yssie]

Wow - amazing photos, thank you for sharing!


What a darling little thing

 

[JewelFreak]

Wow! Amazing photos! Thank you for sharing. What kind of deer are they?

LV, they're white-tail deer. It's almost irresistable not to pick up those little guys & hug them (good luck!). We try not to interact with them so they don't learn to trust humans. The mothers, when they're around, are incredibly fierce in protecting them if you approach. Last summer one doe practically shredded a neighbor's Golden who wanted to play. Their hooves are like razors. It is fascinating & fun to watch their behaviors, how they raise their kids & how the babies go from wobbly spindly newborns to busy little characters. Curious & timid at the same time -- timid, of course, because they're prey animals.

The 2 last year had a favorite game that cracked us up. They'd start facing each other from opposite sides of the yard, then play Chicken, zoom toward one another at their top speeds & inches before crashing, would veer off, then buck & buck around like tiny broncos, then do it all again. It was the cutest thing on earth!

Here they are, from last summer (these fawns had different mothers). Sorry it's not clearer:

 

[tyty333]

What a cool place to live where you get babies every year! They are sooooo cute!

 

[Echidna]

They're gorgeous! Thanks for sharing, JewelFreak. How beautiful

 

[Tuckins1]

Aaaawwww.... So sweet!!

 

[choro72]

I'm so jealous! Where do you live, and does it happen every year? And what about bears? If I understand correctly, it's crucial that you don't let these animals get the idea that humans are nice.

 

[OUpearlgirl]

Oh how sweet! They really are beautiful animals. They are also very lucky that they had you watching out for them!

 

[elrohwen]

Those are so adorable!! Thanks for posting pics!

My parents live in PA and have the same thing going on - every year they get one or two fawns growing up in their backyard. So fun to see the pics. Though my mom does get really annoyed that they eat all of her flowers - she's constantly yelling at them to get lost. haha.

 

[JewelFreak]

I can dig your mother's irritation, Elrohwen. In our last house we fed the deer & had as many as 14 at the feeder at one time. I learned to use plants they find icky. It's not hard to put in a very pretty garden that's still deer-proof with just a little research. Rabbit proof? Not so much!!!

We don't try to make friends with them for the very reason that trusting humans is bad for their health. We do not interact at all, except occasionally I'll be in the garden when they mosey out of the woods. Usually they zoom back to safety. We watch them through the windows mostly.

My biggest problem is keeping neighbors out of the yard; everybody wants to see them & acts as if they're pets. One neighbor asked if she could bring her grandchildren! No way! I also discovered my next-door neighbor roaming around our yard with a camera ("I want to send pics to my mother.") Sheesh! You must be careful of them -- if they get alarmed they can try to jump the fence & being too little, get tangled. I know someone who found a strangled fawn in her fence.

--- Laurie

 

[Lynnie]

The deer are beautiful, Jewel!! What a thing to stumble (literally) upon!!

I've never seen any wild animals in my yard other than bunnies and squirrels... what a sight a deer would be!

 

[Arkteia]

Deers used to come to our yard and eat the roses... I did not mind, they probably found some vitamins in them. But sadly, we, humans are expanding, and the deers disappeared from the forest behind our yard - but sometimes they would still come, I think they are confused and lost. There were coyotes, but they, too, have disappeared. Now we see a lot of bunnies, a sign that predators have left. In winter, we sometimes see mooses. Ducks are there. Raccoons, sadly, still stay.
Great photographs. Excuse my curiosity, but which area of the country do you live in? (I am not asking for the state).

 

[JewelFreak]

We live in North Carolina. When we moved to this house, the neighborhood was pretty much by itself in the middle of farms and huge tracts of forest. About 30 min. from a bigger city, which was perfect. I used to drive home past horses grazing, soybean fields, beautiful rolling hills. Now they sprout housing tracts & townhouses. It makes me indescribably sad. I feel as you do, Crasru, mourn for the animals losing their habitat. We never used to see deer at all but now they gravitate to the woods around here, built out of their previous homes. I get annoyed as hell when people complain about their "deer problems." The deer were here first; it's they who have a people problem.

We have a few foxes, I'm told coyotes too though I've never seen or heard one (we had tons of them when we lived in Conn.). No bears in this area, plenty in the mountains. Lots of horned owls and various hawks -- enough to be a threat to little pets. Lots of food for all of them to eat in the vicinity.

I decided the fox who came a-hunting in our backyard was an adolescent with more enthusiasm than experience. They NEVER go that close to humans here & foxes generally don't eat anything bigger than a rabbit. Any fox with half a brain would know he'd need to be in the backyard for a time to eat a fawn, dangerous, and he could not have taken it out over the fence to eat later. He must have been on his way home from a night on the town & seen Mama Deer jump our fence after checking on the babies (they were almost completely weaned) and thought AHA! I'M GONNA BE A BIG GROWN-UP HUNTER! When he got back to the den, his mother probably grounded him for doing something so risky & dumb.

--- Laurie

 

[missydebby]

 

[MonkeyPie]

He must have been on his way home from a night on the town & seen Mama Deer jump our fence after checking on the babies (they were almost completely weaned) and thought AHA! I'M GONNA BE A BIG GROWN-UP HUNTER! When he got back to the den, his mother probably grounded him for doing something so risky & dumb.
--- Laurie

Haha, that's funny. What a great place to live! I want a backyard maternity ward! They are so precious at that age, such long legs and big heads. And those ears look super soft.

 

[oranges]

those pictures are magnificent! we had baby deer twins born in our front yard this year---they were just beyond adorable

 

[Autumnovember]

Awesome pictures. They are so cute! I love animals!