question

[BillyBoB]

I was out scouting the last 48 hours and saw several does,bucks and fawns. There was one fawn that really caught my attention because it looked very very young. It was spotted and looked as if it had just started walking. Of all the fawns I saw, it was the only one spotted. My question is that normal to see such a very young fawn so late in the year? My concern is that if fawns are born too late into the year, they may not last the winter. I have no idea what the length of pregnancy is for a doe.
Can someone enlighten me?






Theodore Roosevelt's guidance concerning conservation...
"The movement for the conservation of wildlife, and the conservation of all our natural resources, are essentially democratic in spirit,purpose and method."

"We do not intend that our natural resources shall be exploited by the few against the interests of the majority. Our aim is to preserve our natural resources for the public as a whole, for the average man and the average woman who make up the body of the American people."

"It is in our power...to preserve game..and to give reasonable opportunities for the exercise of the skill of the hunter,whether he is or is not a man of means."

 

[hangingmeat]

It is perfectly normal and shows mother natures way of diversifying itself by giving off a fawn crop of such a wide variety of birthing dates.

It also testifies as to how well are management groups such as SFW,DFW,MDF are doing by creating habitat for are bucks and does to reproduce.

Very cool, I hope you were able to get a couple pictures?

 

[HuntinFool]

Coming down the Mill Hollow road last night after fishing two fawns stopped in the middle of the road and they both had a few spots left.

 

[brutus54]

I saw two fawns with spots in the middle of Sept above Vernal Utah a few years back.I thought that was strange.

 

[TOPGUN]

LAST EDITED ON Aug-23-12 AT 08:10AM (MST)[p]That is not perfectly normal if you're seeing a small fawn like that this late in the year. Mother nature times the rut so that fawns are born at the perfect time of year in the area they are born to have the best chance at good growth before the stress time in that area. The mother of that fawn obviously was not bred for a number of months and evidently cycled in late in the winter while a buck was still hard-horned and capable of breeding. If that fawn is as small as you say, it probably has less than a 50/50 chance at survival unless the winter is very mild. It probably won't survive even an average winter where you are if it's that small.

 

[OldJake]

+1 Topgun

 

[littlebighorn]

This weekend I saw several spotted fawns, in fact most of the fawns I saw had spots. It is very common, from my experience in Utah, to see spotted fawns this time of year. As suggested above, their mothers were bread later in the breading season, but unless we have an early or hard winter, they will have a good chance at making it through. There is still time for them to mature.
Also this weekend, I watched a coyote herd a lamb away from a domestic herd and chase it over a hill, never to be seen again. The ironic thing was, the lamb was bigger than the coyote, and if it had faced the dog, instead of running, the coyote would have coward away. Certainly young fawns are more vulnerable to predation, but that is why they stay pretty tight to their mothers.

 

[TOPGUN]

LAST EDITED ON Aug-23-12 AT 09:01AM (MST)[p]A lot of the fawns born this Spring still have spots and depending on when they were born they are starting to transition into their adult winter coat over the next month or two. We're talking about small ones that have just been born recently and there is a huge difference in 2-3 months at that stage in life. I saw triplet whitetails up here just on the edge of town following their mother last week and they had almost lost all their spots and were about half her size.

 

[nontypical]

My biologist friend once told me that if a fawn is less than fifty lbs by Oct 1,his chances of survival are very low.

 

[Tristate]

This is a perfectly normal natural occurance and deer need this to occurr on a random basis sometimes. Average length of term for the deer is 200 days. It is not un-heard of for a deer to cycle later than the main peak of the rut, even by months. This helps in natural selection if the there were to be significant longterm changes in climate, habitat, or something else that the heard needs to adapt to. Assuming none of these changes are occuring then Topgun is right that this fawn runs a very high chance of early mortality. As for statements about when bucks can breed, that is of very little importance here. A buck can breed a doe at any time assuming a doe is cycling regardless of having horns or not. More than likely this same doe that produced this fawn will cycle the same time year after year and some of the offspring she has will also cycle later than the normal doe in that area.