Last week my husband took his 3rd Doe of the season with his bow on a property owned by the University which is trying to reduce the Deer herd #'s thru Bowhunters.
Upon field dressing the 6 1/2 year old very healthy and fat doe he came upon this approx 1 inch deer fetus...... we could make out 4 legs, ribs and 2 small black dots as the eyes.
Call me morbid but I found it very interesting to see from many aspects, the size of growth of the fetus this late in the season, the deer #'s we might have really reduced and or mantained the herd over our many years of bowhunting( had the fetus's of all the Doe's we have taken through out the yearsmade it to birth and then survived the #'s of fawn mortality), Why only one fetus in such a extremely healthy mature doe where twin and triplet fawn'sare not the minority? Wonder how many other hunters have come across fetus's before or are my husband and I the only Freaks out there looking[X(]
Just really made me stop and think ...... like the old Illinois Buttons used to say.... I Took A Doe So The Herd Wont Grow.
Some of you may find this picture below graphic but to me this is just a small part of the reality of hunting in my opinion.....
And I am sure all the PETA Members will have Kitten's over this Pic....

The pic isnt that great since I only had my cell phone to take the pic with.
The Fetus is the small blob on the left of the photo with the amniotic sack to the right.

Can't say I've ever had that happen, but I imagine it might happen more than some think.

I just posted on another thread that I shot a doe late season bowhunting that had 3 fawns in her. Pretty crazy, yet very interesting to see.

that's some crazy stuff right there. I think that is a pretty cool thing to see. This is all part of herd control and growing big bucks. Keep it going.

Dan;
What was the date that you shot your late season Doe and How big were the fetus's ?

I just post a reply to a similar thread just as Dan did. Here is what I wrote;

Not to sound too hard, but you were there to do some killing, right? You just killed more than you planned. You shouldn't feel bad at all. In my area there are way too many doe, so guilt isn't really a factor. I think everyone will feel some remorse for killing any animal, or at least should, but as mentioned above by Rob, they're pretty much all pregnant at this point.

My friends and i went hunting on Saturday and we killed three doe. All three were pregnant with twins. I thought this was strange, I may be ignorant on the subject, but I was always told that doe normally give birth to one fawn and only sometimes more. The main reason offered was that the winter is hard on the pregnant doe and she will most likely not be able to support the requirements of more than one fawn and will pass one or more to ensure the success of at least one offspring. Of course not consciously or anything, just an act of nature and survival.

Anyone have any info on this? Am i ignorant or was this a strange coincidence?

Thanks,
KP

Somewhere between Dec 30 and Jan 2, I don't recall exactly off hand.

If I see the one in your pic correctly, it is smaller than the ones I shot. I would guess they were 2-2.25" long. You could definately see eyes, ears, nose, tail, legs, and hooves. Everything was pink, including the hooves, except for the eyes.I wish I would have taken a picture.

That was Saturday, December 30, 2006. All the fetuses looked to be around 1.5" long.

I'm in VA, on or around the 37th parallel.
Good luck,
KP

Some folks might not care for that too much so its ok that your picture is not so good.Its all part of a gutpile to me,but someones going to flip on that picture.

About 10 years ago, my father shot a doe around the second week of January that had a set of twins in her. They were about the same size as those.