Why do deer do this?

I know for a doe I always thought they didn't like it when you pet down their back because it felt like a buck trying to mount them when they are not ready or in season.........just a theory.....but they do it as fawns too so who knows...........I think Bruce had the best theory on the fawns swinging their feet out when they eat....he said it is an automatic response to keep other fawns away like they are protecting their teet that they are feeding off of.........makes sense if you ever watch deer at the feed trough when they chase another one away they usually use their front feet to swat at them.......pretty cool stuff......love learning about these animals!!

When we started raising deer I thought I knew a lot about deer .... found out in the scale of deer knowledge....I knew absoloutely nothing

I think learning about deer is an open book - you are always learning about them.

Bruns Island Whitetails said:

I know I saw a thread on here about fawns swinging there front legs while feeding and I could'nt find it back.

Anyway I will just ask this question here.

Is there anybody that has any idea what makes deer crouch down when petting them down the back towards the direction of their hips? Even my older deer do this as well as the fawns. Thanks in advance! Eldon

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Don't know on deer because I don't have any anymore that I can really pet, but thinking about other species...cats have lots of nerve endings near their spine that apparently are pretty close to the skin-some cats do a funny dance if you scratch their backs towards the back end. And swine...got a big one that won't get up? The blunt end of an ink pen with just a little pressure and a slight scratching motion will make 90% of them jump up and bark. My bet is that most quad-peddlers (mammals) have a similar situation with the nerve endings.