Thread: For those who have reared fawns

Why?

It’s never ended well in my experience and not been worth it. I say that having never actually raised a deer myself of course. But I’ve sat on the sideline and watched the wives and kids of cockies have a go with orphan deer and it’s never worked out long-term. Almost always results in the bloke in the arrangement walking out one evening having cracked the shits and shooting it after somethings gone badly wrong.

It’s been the same in Australia with feral horse foals, wallabies and kangaroos, feral goats... calves from scrub cattle (fark that... crazy buggers) and even a few donkeys up in the Northern Territory. What do you call a baby donkey? Fucked if I know. But that didn’t work either. I think there comes a point with all these creatures no matter how familiar they look, and them being relatively recent descendants of domesticated animals, that the inbred respect for human is pretty much gone and they just want to do their own thing. And if you weigh 400kg or have horns - or both - and want to share the same space as someone’s kids, it can end quite badly.

I say don’t do it from the get go to avoid the risk of injury, damage and as a minimum the inevitable disappointment that will come.

The only creatures I’ve seen succeed being tamed to the point where they are actually pleasant to have around are feral pigs. Trapped at a young age and put in a good pen and fed well, and they soon get the message and seem to be the only creatures that learn quickly enough that being a dickhead is not in their interest. I say this though as someone who doesn’t hesitate to shoot the ones that don’t show the right inclination pretty much immediately, to be fair of the trapped pigs we’ve put through the pen probably only 50% make it.