Orphaned Fawns, Domestic Deer, and What to Do

“Hey babe, come check this out,” my wife said from the backyard.

As I approached her, I saw a small spotted creature with huge ears. About the size of a medium-sized dog, but perched on spindly legs, I met the eyes of the fawn peeking over the property line.

“Hmm,” I said, “Little fawn. Nice little fellow.”

My wife, ever ready to take in a stray and have to walk past tail spats with free puppies at Wal-Mart, looked at me with the same eyes the fawn had. “It looks lost! Can we keep it?”

I took a sip of my coffee and returned to the kitchen, “he’s fine. He’s not lost, just wandering.”

She was heartbroken and asked how she could tell with just one look.

Well here goes.

Identify an orphaned fawn

White-tailed deer, like those found in abundance throughout Mississippi, rut in fall and winter, leading to thousands of cute little deer being born from late April to mid-July of the following year. At birth, these fawns will have redder fur than their parents, and will be covered in hundreds of tiny white spots. These spots help the fawn blend in with the myriad of blooming wildflowers and weeds in the spring and summer when it hatches. As an added protection from good Mother Nature, fawns don’t have any shipping to prevent predators from sniffing them out. As such, the mothers of these nursing fawns try to stay away from their young as much as possible so as not to erase their own scent. In October, young fawns normally lose their spots and are now foraging rather than nursing, on their way to adulthood.

With this in mind, if you see a spotted fawn in the spring and summer, chances are it’s not with its mother right next to it. Mom is most likely hiding in a nearby thicket while the kids explore the world. Alternatively, Mom may have left Junior behind so she could go get some food, since she still eats for two.

One of the best signs to see if a fawn is orphaned and distressed is if it is dehydrated. A dehydrated baby deer is a deer that cannot nurse for some reason. Maybe mom is dead, or maybe she’s sick and doesn’t produce milk. Whatever the case, these dehydrated fawns can be easily identified by the position of their ears. A dehydrated fawn will have broad ears that fold back at the tips or, in later stages, will collapse and become unresponsive to stimulation. If a fawn has nice narrow ears and walks around, it’s most likely not an orphan. Let it be. Mom will be very attentive to human scents on her baby and she may not want anything to do with it if you try to play fawn cuddle. Worse still, if she takes the fawn away, the doe’s milk will start to dry up in as little as 24 hours.

As the old people say, “the ears are straight, the fawn is great. The ears are curled; it is unique in the world.”

What to do if you find one?

So you have an orphaned deer on your hands. Your baby is sick, his ears are crooked and he is just pathetic. You have watched the fawn for hours and it has neither moved nor has a mother come to take care of it. As confirmation, you may have even found a lactating doe killed by a car a few blocks away. What are you doing now?

The best and most correct answer is to find a local wildlife rehabilitation group that can take the animal. While they do not advertise due to a lack of funding, these little-known wildlife heroes are state and federally licensed wildlife rehabilitators, keepers or veterinarians located throughout the state. A good resource for finding one locally is MS Wild Life Rehab.org. If you come up short, call your local conservancy office as soon as possible.

Until the animal can be picked up or taken to a rehabilitation center, keep it warm and dry and do not attempt to feed it any food other than plain water.

Can you keep it as a fart?

The simple answer is no. Now reread that award if you have questions. In Mississippi, it is illegal to keep a deer as a pet. If you are caught with one, you are facing at minimum a Class 3 offense, and could face a fine of up to $1000 (plus fees) and/or up to 6 months in jail. It is also illegal to import whitetail deer into Mississippi. This is for the good of the animal.

Wild animals taken as pets are no longer wild, but they are never really pets. Once steps down that path are taken, the animal finds itself in a strange catch-22 situation. It can never be released into the wild because it has become so dependent on humans that it can never learn to care for itself properly. However, it cannot be vaccinated or cared for enough to be anything but an easy target for passing poachers.

Deer as pets were recently banned in Arkansas. In neighboring Tennessee, it has long been illegal to keep wild deer as pets.

So remember all this when your doe-eyed wife calls you to the deck.

I need to get that woman a dog.