So we had someone drop off a baby deer at our clinic. It was ADORABLE! The story was that the fawn had been caught in his chain link fence for 3 days. The mother had been hanging around for the first 2 days, then the 3rd day he didn’t see her. Unfortunately he left before we could discuss a plan of action with him. If he had hung around we would have told him to take the fawn right back to where he found him, despite its cuteness. Why, you ask?
Fawns as young as this one (just a week or 2 old) are not strong enough to walk around with their mother while she forages for enough food to feed herself and nurse her young. The doe will roam nearby, out of sight, and come back at dawn and dusk to nurse the fawn or move it. Untangling this fawn and just leaving it there would have been the best course of action. Mom will keep coming back, but not while people are hanging around. Unless you actually witnessed something happen to the doe, you should leave a fawn where you found it.
Fawns this young don’t do well in captivity, and if they live to adulthood, frequently they imprint on their human caretakers and it is difficult to get them to go back into the wild. For more information check out http://wildlifecenter.org/baby-deer
