So because of the lack of snow in your area Pglasgow, I take it that the deer kind of migrate off the mountains into the valley to get out of the deep snow. Less snow of course means more food available. As for the wife's wildlife pets, that would depend on how empty the freezer was.

Around here of course we do not have mountains per say, where they deer can come off of. What they do when the snow gets deep is they yard up. They go into the cedar and orhardwoods and stomp the snow down in to yards. Anyone that ever saw a deer yard in a hard winter knows that they look like, and they deer are not pretty there. They loose lots of body fat, they can dehydrate, and some of them of course die from the cold.