My 2 year old doe just had fawns yesterday about 10am. These were her first fawns. A doe that was 5.2 pounds and a Buck who was 8.6 pounds. I noticed that her vulva is very swollen and seems to have some tears in the skin. We are new to deer farming, and we have only had 5 or so does give birth on our property. So we are not very experienced. I know none of them have ever looked like this, but I have no measure of how bad it is or what to do. A friend of ours breeds goats and she gave me 2ccs of banamine to give. She said I could give it orally but I just wanted to check to make sure orally would be fine for a deer too. Could I just shoot it into an apple and try to feed it to her?or just try to squirt it in her mouth? What is your opinion? Here is a picture I took about midnight last night, so a little over 12 hours after she gave birth. Id say its about the same degree swollen today, but the blood seems to have dried up a bit. So its not as bright red. I could try ot get another pic with a better camera a little later.
does she act like it bothers her? That is nature, just watch her to make sure it doesnt become infected but most likely wont. I wouldnt drug her up just because it will make you feel better.
I don't know if it bothers her or not. We haven't 100% saw her feed her fawns, but they don't seem hungry either. A few times she ran away while they tried to nurse, but there were fireworks off and on all weekend as well as our neighbors had a party so there were people in their backyard the deer arent used to seeing. On top of that we had a huge thunderstorm yesterday and heavy rain and thunder off and on all day. It did appear they nursed while she was laying down a few times. We have only had 6 births on our farm. None of them every had any sort of tearing or swelling. So when we saw her look like that, we panicked. I tend to over react and worry easily over the deer. She and her twin are our first bottlefed babies; so we love her. If it doesn't seem like its out of the ordinary, I'll hold off on the banamine. I don't want to drug her to make me feel better. I just was worried she was in pain or at a risk of infection and that if she was in pain, maybe she wouldn't nurse her babies. The recomendation of the banamine came from our horse and goat breeder friend who said if we give that, the swelling will go down and she'll heal up faster and have less pain. But if its normal then I'll just monitor her and make sure she doesn't seem in pain.
I dont breed deer, but I have had goats that twinned as first time mothers and they bleed for a couple of weeks. Never once seemed to bother them.
I had three first time mothers this year that swelled up and were bleeding just as you described. They all are back to normal now. When the blood dries it will be black and look pretty bad but she will be fine. They do a good job of keeping it clean. As for the fawns feeding, They will normally let you know. I had a first time mother not take to her fawn right away. We could hear it bleating from inside the house as he was looking for her.
I had a young doe that was bred at 6 months so she fawned just a about 2 weeks ago. She had a 9.5 lb fawn. It stretched her out quit a bit and looked similar to your picture. She was very slow the first couple days but did nurse her fawn ok. I kept a close watch on her and she looked fine in three days and back to more normal looking. She ended up just a few days ago with mastitis which we had to put her down for treating her. Her utter cleared up in just three days because we caught it early. Thursday was when we last checked her and she was just then loosing the last of the after birth. That is a bit unusual but I guess a late purging of the afterbirth occurs in cattle occasionally also. We are still keeping a close eye on her. It is nice that she is a tame doe so we can get right up and check her out without darting her. I am posting this even this much later just to share the experience for others.
You can readily tell if she is feeding the fawns by picking them up and seeing/feeling for a full belly. Early am might be the best time to check, but check whenever. I had one just born within the last few days that was bawlin last night with no one seeming to care. When I fed tonight, I found the fawn and he was definitely gettin fed according to his tight tummy when I picked him up. If he'd a been gant, he was comin home.
Joined Apr 2009
524 Posts | 0+
Russell, MN
Having babies stretches (and tears) a girls private parts. 8 1/2 lbs is a pretty good size fawn even for a "seasoned" doe. We just had a yearling doe give birth to a 9lb 13oz bouncing baby boy. She was ripped and stretched and bled for several days, but time heals....just as in women. 2 years ago we had a yearling doe give birth to a 10 lb 12oz buck fawn. Now, she was ripped horribly and we did dart her with some antibiotic only because she was extreme and standing with her tail in the air and back hunched for over a week. She ended up disowning her buck fawn and he was bottle fed. Most of our fawns are huge bodied fawns from our own breeder bucks....most averaging over 9lbs. Even the older girls have some troubles but after a couple of days...sometimes longer....everything is back to normal. We don't treat our does for this except for the yearling doe explained above.