Fawn still with doe?

[BeerHunter]

I was out muzzleloader hunting last night and i saw the same fawn and doe that i have seen most of the season still together. At 2 times there has been a fork buck with them but last night it was the large doe with the fawn.

WOndering if anyone knows why they may still be together?

just seemed a little odd to me.

[Gforce]

i have seen similiar things too. i hunt in big stone county and i havent seen any does chasing off fawns at all. they are still together to this day. i thinks its weird to. the fawns are still following the does as if they were just a month old. i have only seen one doe without a fawn all season.

[Cooter]

Pretty normal, you'll see them together right up through spring time til mama sends them on their own - bucks will tend to disperse much further than does. Thats part of the mass road slaughter each spring, along with the search for anything green after a long winter. Later.

[lcornice]

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I was out muzzleloader hunting last night and i saw the same fawn and doe that i have seen most of the season still together. At 2 times there has been a fork buck with them but last night it was the large doe with the fawn.

WOndering if anyone knows why they may still be together?

just seemed a little odd to me.

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Female fawns will stick with mom for a very long time. There's some research that shows females form lifelong family groups (grandma, mom, daughter). They'll separate a bit during breeding and then again during fawning but the remainder of the year they occupy the same general home ranges. As for button bucks, they get kicked off generally by mid-October and are left to fend for themselves. This is why you always see a higher harvest rate on males vs. female fawns. Early in the deer season, when you see a lone fawn it's most often a male (unless mom had been previously killed).

[Cooter]

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As for button bucks, they get kicked off generally by mid-October and are left to fend for themselves.

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I learn something new everyday - I was under the impression they hung around with ma til spring just as the doe fawns.

[Big-Al]

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As for button bucks, they get kicked off generally by mid-October and are left to fend for themselves.

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This would be news to me also. I 've seen a pair of buttons with mom several times until snowmelt at least. Mom will give them the boot while in heat but I think most of the time she will accept them back until spring.

[ccarlson]

You must be hunting right outside my kitchen window. I've seen the same exact deer count you mentioned two days in a row in the same place just before sunset plus I see more deer movement back in the woods. The cold is getting them moving a little before dark these days.

Called my nephew and said to get over here with his climber and his bow. We need to thin the herd around here.

I would tend to agree with the young buck/young doe idea. I watched a very nervous fawn buck under my stand this season all by himself and slightly smaller fawns with the does I saw. Who knows.

ccarlson

[Seabass77]

CCarlson - can you send me an email with your address please? I was hoping you might be able to help me with blackwater lake. jsebesta at hotmail (Contact Us Please). Thanks!!

[BLACKJACK]

A good magazine that goes beyond the 'stalk and shoot' stories and gets into deer biology is 'Deer and Deer hunting'. I highly recommend it if you like deer hunting.

[BLACKJACK]

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As for button bucks, they get kicked off generally by mid-October and are left to fend for themselves.

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Interesting, I'd never heard that. Does this happen 100% of the time? I know when I was watching my corn food plots late last winter, I saw quite a few does with two fawns. Can I 'assume' that both fawns were doe fawns?

[Code-Man]

was out yesterday saw about 15 deer and I think they were mostly fawns and does. they were all together. So I don't know if they got kicked and came back together or what but they were pretty thick.

[Quickstrike]

I was out yesterday with the muzzleloader and every doe i saw had a fawn with it.

[bigbucks]

I shot a doe with my ML on Saturday morning that had two fawns with it. I don't know if they were bucks or does, didn't get that good a look at them.

I shot a button buck on New Year's Eve two years ago (with my bow) that was in a group of four deer, one of them being a doe. I believe the fawns often get kicked out during the rut, but most of the time they get back together with mom at some point.

My hunting partner shot a lone deer in the afternoon that turned out to be a button buck.

[art]

Nearly every button buck that I and my cohorts have shot has been with it's mom and this is in the 3B season. Maybe it's different in other parts of the state but not where I'm from. I'm assuming the solitary ones that have been shot lost mamma earlier in the day. I've seen does with fawns in the spring too. Now you guys got me curious about the deer biology. There is always something new to learn and I've been doing it for nearly 15 years now. Every year is a new learning experience and listening to other people's angles and experiences is enlightening as well.