Grasshopper13

Hi all!

I got into my stand about 545 this morning and around 8 o' clock I had 4 deer wander in under my stand. It looked to be an old doe, her fawn from last year, and 2 fawns from this spring. The two new fawns had a few faint spots on their backs still, and I looked as close as i could, but i thought they were both small does. The 2 newer fawns were standing about 7 yards from me. As a general rule, we try not to shoot button bucks on our family farm. It happens sometimes and it' s really not a big deal, but I have been letting the buck fawns walk for about the last 3-4 years. Anyhow, I ended up hitting a limb and missed the fawn i shot at. After about another hour and a half, I climbed down and confirmed my suspicion of a clean miss. On my way out, I collected the film from a trail camera i have been lucky enough to borrow for a couple of weeks. To make a long story short, after looking at the pictures i got, I found 2 pictures of a pair of fawns and their mama, taken not 75 yards from where i' ve been hunting. One of them was very close to the camera and you can easily see the knots on top of his head. The other fawn was farther away in the pictures and you couldn' t really tell about it' s sex. They both did have faint spots on the tops of their backs, clearly visible in the pictures. i am almost 100% confident that they were the same two i saw this morning. That doe/ fawn group has been living in that area all summer long. My question is this: When a doe gives birth to a pair of twins, are they always the same sex? I felt pretty certain the one I shot at this morning was a doe, but if they always have twins of the same sex, i won' t even bother trying to shoot one of the fawns the next time I get a chance. Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.......


GH

Lady Forge

I asked an outfitter friend of mine this question and this is his reply.
A doe with a single fawn is usually a buck fawn.
A doe with twin fawns are usually at lest one buck fawn and a doe fawn, or , 2 buck fawns.
A doe with triplets is usually 2 buck fawn and a doe fawn, or can be vic versa
But these are not written in stone . You know mother nature ,anything goes.
He explained to me that bucks have a higher mortallity rate, fighting,he said you will never see a dumber deer than a button buck( curiosity killed the cat), and chasing does across the roads, mother doe will run them off and then they are on there own etc.........
I guess mother nature has figured this into the plan and the deer by nature then produce more bucks than does.

portable ladder

sometimes does will have 2 buck fawns / 2 doe fawns / 1 each / only 1 / or sometimes even 3, they can all be mixed...so just because one fawn is a button buck, its sibling may very well be female...good luck

Jorgy

Lady Forge, with what you wrote, or how the outfitter explained fawns to you, the majority of deer would be bucks. That isn' t how nature works. Does outnumber bucks in just about all of the US. Actaully, I' ve never heard of a buck to doe ratio higher than 1:1.

Sweetwater

If there are two, usually one is a buck & one is a doe

GBhunter

i was just wondering, if you are so worried about QDM, why not shoot last years doe or the older one, why shoot a fawn?

Mod70

Mother Nature says that each fawn has a 50-50 chance of being buck or doe. The egg supplied by the mother is classified as XX the sperm supplied by the father is XY. Each parent supplies one half of the genes to the offspring. The mother always supplies an X and the father supplies either an X or Y. Each fawn starts as an egg and sperm. therefore they have equal chances to become boy or girl.

timbercruiser

I can' t believe that you would even attempt to shoot a spotted fawn. Every state that I have hunted in it is illegal to shoot a spotted fawn. There is no excuse in my opinion for this act (shooting a baby deer).

txbowjunkie

As with human conception, there is no way to positively know if it' s male or female.

Like Mod70 said, mother nature gives every birth a 50-50 chance, even in twins!

Sweetwater

Let me also take the time to concur with timbercruiser here. Whoever holds out to harvest a baby fawn? I have never in all my years of hunting heard of someone who actually aims to shoot a fawn.