Whould like to know if any of you have A.I.ed there doe fawns and if so what kind of results did you have? Whould like to hear all opinions good or bad.
Joined Apr 2009
1,485 Posts | 0+
Vaughn, MT 59487
Yes a fawn will breed but ask yourself do we really need to push our animals at that young of a age. I believe breeding her as a fawn the results will be a smaller body size doe from the stress of raising a fawn at that young of age. I also feel she will not be able to feed it properly because she is still building her own body so what did you gain?
The fawns I have raised by accident from fawns that produced almost all turned out to be junk. They were born too late for Montana weather and did very poorly.
My advice is let the fawns grow up so they can produce the best fawns for your program. Start breeding them at yearling's for your best animals produced.
The fawns I have raised by accident from fawns that produced almost all turned out to be junk. They were born too late for Montana weather and did very poorly.
My advice is let the fawns grow up so they can produce the best fawns for your program. Start breeding them at yearling's for your best animals produced.
We to have had little success with keeping fawns born from fawns healthy. Live cover may cause more late births and fawn problems. I have never AI fawns even though it may reduce problems with live covered late fawn births. We understand in the wild if a fawn is sexually mature a buck will breed. Has anyone noticed mother (fawns) with poor mothering skills because of her age of only 12-14 months?
Scott
Scott
Joined May 2009
2,369 Posts | 0+
Chillicothe, Missouri
Scott, that is why we stopped breeding our fawns.We cidr'd and live covered our large fawns (100 lbs. & up) years and had no real troubles except for that very thing.They had poor to no mothering skills and would more often than not have them mother the fawn or fawns for a few days then stop. That would always create a new set of problems.....with fawns who were terrible to get going on the bottle. Jack is right (in my opion) I would let them grow up and not try and mess with mother nature.
I personally don't breed my fawns but can see where it be an advantage in certain circumstances like increasing numbers or getting a year ahead in genetics. I've seen success rates with lap AI run 30% to 65% when using fawns over 6 months old with big body size and developed teats. Their fawns have been as big as a 10lb single to 6.5lb twins with the smallest being 3.5lbs. Never had a problem getting them on the bottle & they don't have anymore health issues than the other fawns. Because their born so late they do seem to take an extra year to catch up in body size though.