bottle feeding

If your adults are calm, and you spend some time in the pens the fawns will be too. I have numerous animals that were not bottle fed but will eat from my hand just because of the mothers calmness, treats are very helpful to the process.

We "imprinted" a few fawns a couple years ago to see if that would tame the fawns.  We did a test on fawns from 2 tame mothers and 2 10-footer moms.  We can't tell these fawns apart from the bottlefed fawns.  The fawns from the 10-footer moms still eat out of our hand now and then.  But then again we get bottlefeds that only eat from the hand now and then. 


 


What we did fawn imprinting:  as soon as fawns were born we spent at a minimum of 2 times a day petting the fawns nose to tail and talking to them for about 5 minutes each time.  We did this as many days as we could before they thought we were invading their space.  We joked that we were imprinting too long, one of the 10-footer fawns let us pet up to 21 days!  Most received 10-12 days of petting.  What took so long was finding them in the pen.  Sure helps to cut grass in 3' strips.

All my fawns that we did not bottle feed are 5-10 footers I am in the pen everyday feeding them treats when they see me they come running treats are the trick. I have adult crazy does that I started feeding treats they come running when they see me but they stay there distance but still want the treats. Its all about treats and spending time in the pens. My bottle fed fawn are so dog tame they frustrate me sometimes cause they wont leave me alone. My trick is dobbins apple treats.

we get day old bread and try to give 2-3 x a week.  They all love it and the pain in the rear real tame does help open the bags.

I have a two year old breeder that was born on a very cold rainy day. After his mom cleaned him he was ok. A couple hours later I checked on him and he was laying on his back. I grabbed him and took him in the house and began to warm him up. He only stayed in the house for about two hours but it was so soon after birth, that he imprinted on me. He is now dog tame. I am going to do this with at least half of my doe fawns this year to experiment. His mom is also the most tame doe that I have.

I bottlefed a couple this past spring, but I was busy building a handling facility in my barn so I really didn't spend near my the amount of time with the bottlefeds that I would have liked to. I would go in, feed them, stimulate them, then walk out. In other years I would feed, then spend at least ten minutes with them, in addition to visiting them often just to pet them and play with them. I came to no surprise, that This year yielded the "wildest" set of bottlefeds I ever had. Just this morning I pet a mother raised doe fawn on the nose, while my two bottlefeds stood 10 feet away. I realized that I am much better off not bottle feeding, versus bottle feeding and not giving up enough time to get the fawns really comfortable around me. My deer are all tame, because I am around them daily for feeding and giving treats. I am sure I will always have my deer tame enough to completely eliminate bottle feeding provided I don't change my daily feeding routines. I run chainsaws, tractors, mowers, and even shoot .22 and shotguns (pest control) in my pens quite often, my fawns are used to every human noise from the day they are born. I even allow my 4 dogs to run freely everywhere they want to in my deer pens, my dogs all grew up with the deer and to them deer are no more out of the ordinary than me or my family, I think time spent in pens is the most important factor in an all around tame herd.

Our first bottle feds we spent a bunch of time with of course being the first.


Our next to crops we fed 2x,3x as many.  When we start them we bring them in the house in a play pen until I get them sucking good and coming to me for the bottle. Usually about a week then I take them out to the barn where for a couple days I have to lure them to the bottle rack or hand feed.  I can honestly say the first one or two we feed has been the tamest each year.  There are some that are up my rear when in the pen and the rest are close but not in arms length.  I actually like the ones that aren't as close because they move much better when we run them through.  The real tame ones turn and look where the others go away but are not crazy.  That's the way I like them.  Of course you may have one or two that act like they have not been bottlefed when you run them in and are stupid, but so are some of the real tame when we get them in the chute.

I believe every genetic line is different in temperament and some vastly different in calmness and disposition. I have some mothers that are very tame and their fawns don't always copy moms demeanor. One year their offspring maybe touchable w/o bottle feeding once they become adults. Then the next year we've Ai'd the same dog tame mother in the same pen to a different sire and the fawns once adults are crazy as pet coons and I don't recall handling one of them anymore or less than the other. We have never tried the imprint method on our farm although we do spend a lot of time in the doe pens. It's sounds like a good idea with a smaller herd but we have over 40 bred adult doe. I would have to carry a check off card around the pens to remember if I had held or petted so many fawns. It seems like there wouldn't be enough sunlight in a day for me to find & hold or pet them all for a little while? The potentially crazy personality of certain genetic lines is worthy of noting when considering whether to bottle feed offspring or not. Beware,you may be surprised by how edgy and skittish a new bloodline is or you may be pleasantly surprised by how calm they are. An example of this on our farm is a crazy buck(fortunately) we have out of Big Ben by AI and the touchable doe by Thunderstorm who pasture bred the same mom. The tame Thunderstorm doe is 4 and the Big Ben buck coming three.He is really wide but is the nuttiest deer on the farm by far. He is headed to the preserve this fall.

Good luck

We bottle fed none last yr and they are all calm...some eat from hand...some follow  around and some don't get too close...same as the bottle fed from the prior yr