Wildlife: First Fawn of the rehab season, 1 by jylgaskin

jylgaskin wrote:
This fawn is anything but an angel right now. Since he is alone, he seems to think it is my assigned duty to entertain him and he want's to play every time I go out the door. In the picture he is in a rare moment of repose, chewing his cud. Please notice what remains of my hosta next to him.

I have been encouraging him to leave the yard and go into the woodlot next door. (I’m hoping that he connects with the wild fawn out there). I push him out the gate and he looks at me like "Why would I want to go out there, there aren't any hostas, no lilies, no chicken feed?" He does spend a lot of time watching over there, so I know that doe and fawn are close.

He is shedding and loosing his spots already as you can see from the second photo. It's early, but I think the heat has a lot to do with it. There are no little nubs on his head yet, but he rubs his forehead against me to scent me and itch the area.

Two of his favorite games right now are sneaking up behind me and grabbing my shorts or skirt and playing with hoses. I've never had a deer with such fascination with water. He has always loved the sprinklers and run about in them, but now, he wants the whole hose. He jumps at the water and drags the hose around to watch the water spray, and then he drops it and starts dancing all over again. Oh well, its cheap entertainment and there is nothing but reruns on TV....

He weighs about 50 pounds (I know, because he is getting very hard to carry out of the chicken pasture when he insists on getting in there when I feed them. (Chicken food, yum!) He drinks a little over a liter of formula two to three times a day and gets lots of fresh kale, Swiss chard and spinach from the garden. Plus the hostas, raspberries, daylilies, shrubs and whatever else he helps himself to.

The coyotes were calling fairly close to the house last night and when I went out to check on every one, he was sleeping next to the house. He's learning. I also limit his exposure to strangers now, so he only feels comfortable with "His" humans.

I read the thread on Dudley. He's pretty cute, but how are you ever going to get him to go away? I have found that to be the hardest part of raising a single Canada. The ducks are easy, I put them out on the small pond in the yard and when the wildlings start flying over head, they just start joining them. It's so cool in the spring when everyone comes back north and mine drop in to say hello and get a snack. We've even had a female come back to raise her young in the pond.

It works pretty much the same if I have Canada multiples, but a single tends to bond with the domestic ducks or me and not want to leave. I try really hard to keep them from bonding with humans because if they are a pest around here, the DNR will eliminate them. They are also pretty strict with the rehab licenses and I'd hate to loose mine because I had a permanent goose.