Late in the evening a friend knocked on our door with a new born baby deer in her arms, not more than an hour old. She found the mother dead from a car accident, and the baby must have popped out of the mother during the accident. The tiny baby buck laid in his mother's blood on the side of the road. Our friend Angelea cleaned off most of the blood, and her and her mother Sakkara wrapped up the baby in a towel to bring it over to us. Without a mother, the fawn had little chance for survival, but we were determined to see her through the night until we could contact a local woman who is licensed to raise orphaned deer.
Please note: We gave this baby deer water because in our remote area at night we didn't have access to anything better. Fawns cannot digest cow's milk, and we couldn't get goat's milk, which would have been an acceptable temporary alternative. We were advised to keep the fawn hydrated until we could get a proper formula for fawns the next morning.
UPDATE: Rescued baby deer are released after maturity where they are found, and this little guy actually came from a nearby herd, not ours, so we haven't seen the guy again. We are comforted to know, however, that deer are amazing in their ability to survive great hardship.
Many thanks to Angelea and Sakkara, and to Vesta for her work in helping local wildlife.
See our Deer in the Yard story, photos and videos at:
http://www.pelorian.com/deer.html
Music in this video from Starseed:
http://www.starseedmusic.net
from a new as-of-yet-unreleased CD:
"Ananda"
