Ollin Magnetic Digiscoping System

Fawns with spots still?

2rocky

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Jul 23, 2010
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My girlfriend swears she saw a doe with a spotted fawn yesterday, October 4th. Has anyone else seen spotted fawns this late on the CA coast?
 
Not in CA, but I've seen several spotted fawns lately in the Adirondacks. All the spring-born deer I've seen this year just look a little smaller.
 
So doing some research I found this:
During the rut the female black tailed deer are in heat or otherwise known as the estrous cycle for 22-29 days. The gestation period is 7 months long so around 203 days (Thomas and Cowan 1975). Birthing season is expected to be as early as May or as late as October. Even though the birthing season is long, normally 85% of fawns are born with 32 days of each other (Encyclopedia of Life 2013). The fawns are born in an isolated bed of tall grasses (WDFW 2013) .
So it is Possible, but probably not common. Anyone ever seen bucks acting rutty in March?
 
I passed up 2 does in Ohio last week because the fawns were still spotted. They would probably have been fine just decided not to try and take one.
 
Some of the spring-born fawns in our area still have faint spots. Last year on Labor Day we saw a fawn with bright spots that looked like a newborn.
 
Saw one a couple days ago on the Feather River/ D-3 and two fawns with faint spots on the B-3 opening weekend in the Mendocino Forest
 
I often see spots well into November. I have one on camera that as of last week still had a few spots on its quarters. This is in central TX.
 
In many areas in the midwest female fawns are bred in mid-Dec. Their offspring are born in early July, so yeah 3 months later the fawns are still small/spotted.
 
In East TN several years ago I had a very small, fully spotted fawn come below my stand several times “bawling” almost continuously looking for its mom… in November muzzleloader season. This was in the prime part of the early rut where the first does just start to come into estrous, so I assumed that the momma had been chased off by a buck in a “courtship ritual.” I used to have it on video, but that phone that held it is long gone.
 
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