Ungulate Rescue

A Story from 2008

A Mule deer doe gave birth to a  fawn beneath a tree near a house at the edge of Cochrane. She had done the same thing the previous year, and the family who lived nearby had telephoned us to tell us about it. Last year they had been thrilled to be able to watch the birth, watch the doe leave her baby and go off to graze, then seen her return to her fawn where it lay hidden under the tree by their house.  They were very careful to stay right away from the tree and its hidden fawn, and watch from the house. They did everything right. And it was worth it because, this year they saw the doe return to the tree, saw her give birth to the fawn, and, just as she had done before, leave her fawn hidden under the tree. 

But this year, it was different!  The doe did not return…after 24 hours of careful watching there was no sign of her.  The householders telephoned to ask us what to do and we said “Wait and watch…you may have missed her in the night”

But the doe didn’t return and the next day the little fawn, a determined and unusual little creature, took charge of what was happening. She got up, left her tree, walked over to the house and lay down under the deck. As soon as she saw someone come out of the door she went over to them and asked to be fed.  This is very un-deer-like behaviour (normally new born fawns lie still and do NOT move!)  The little fawn was brought to the CEI…where she is keeping company with 3 other orphaned fawns…so she knows that she is a deer…The other 3 orphaned fawns came from Calgary and were brought in to the Calgary Wildlife Rehabilitation Society.  The CEI works with the Calgary Wildlife Rehabilitation Society, and when they receive orphaned fawns they keep them long enough to be sure they are healthy and feeding well, then they bring them out to the CEI because we have much more land, and woodland, for them to grow up in under semi-wild conditions.

Raising orphaned wildlife is a very expensive thing to do. To start off a very newborn fawn, you have to use a special milk formula ($14 per can) then when they are doing well you switch them over to goat’s milk ($3.50 per litre) which is a little less expensive!  And they expect to be fed milk every 2 to every 4 hours for as long as their mothers would be lactating …which is several months and a LOT of milk!

Raising orphaned wildlife is also labour intensive…they have to be fed frequently, and carefully watched for the first signs of anything that might go wrong…so we are very happy that we can share our work load with the Calgary Wildlife Rehabilitation Society.

2008 Rescued Deer

Some Past Ungulate Rescues