Its actually a little too early to see many of the fawns traveling with the does. They usually don’t start traveling with the does full time until mid to late July.

Many of them are still to small to keep up with mom so they still use the hider strategy most of the time with mom just coming around to feed them about four to six times every day. Often one or both of them, if there are two, will follow mom for a ways then split off and go hide while mom goes on her merry way. She will come back when it is time to feed the fawns again, but most of her time is spent without the fawns following. Each day the fawns will follow her more and more but it will still be almost a month before they follow her all the time.

I also suspect there are more does with only one surviving fawn this year then what is normal or has occurred the past couple years, at least in the northern tier. We had a hard winter again this year and that typically results in more under weight fawns that don’t survive after birth. About half of the does I checked this spring had one fawn that was much smaller then its twin. The smaller ones probably didn’t make it after being born, thus more does with only one fawn in tow this fall.

R.S. Bodenhorn