posted
My dad sent this to me, and...I don't know, it just looks weird. For one thing, I've never seen a fawn that little before, and the poses just look out of place or something. Maybe I'm just imagining things.
I also didn't know whether to post this here or in Critter Country, but, hey, whatever works. I did a search to see if there were any posts to this effect, but my results returned nothing so bookachow me if you know another thread about this.
-------------------- "STUPID COOKIES! I'M GOING TO EAT THEM TO HELL!" - Nick Posts: 43 | From: Bicknell, Indiana, USA | Registered: May 2003
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DemonWolf
Ding Dong! Merrily on High Definition TV
posted
an't imagine a mother deer being too fond of her little fawn being that close to close huge horses. I think that (assumung the picture is not manipulated of staged) something must have happed to the mother nad the fawn wandered into the pasture.
-------------------- Friends are like skittles: they come in many colors, and some are fruity!
posted
Does frequently leave their fawns unattended for long periods of time. This fawn (and another angle) was in my yard earlier this spring. Mom would leave him in our and our neighbor's yards and she'd be gone for hours. The size is right for a few week old fawn and a good size horse (15-16+ hands) like a thoroughbred
It is unusual that the fawn would not stay absolutely still however. Maybe it recognized another prey animal as part of it's "herd".
Posts: 1596 | From: Illinois | Registered: Sep 2002
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Not the same horse as in the OP, so apparently this happens.
-------------------- "But I'm adding this to my reasons why I never really liked really good looking men much. Sheesh, what good is good looking if you have to stuff a sock in his mouth." - Sara at home NFBSK, IIRC and other mysterious Snopester language Posts: 851 | From: Indiana | Registered: Dec 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Firestorm, on ICE: Ir looks very much like a Mesohippus
It looks very much like this artist's rendering of mesohippus. Considering that no modern human has ever seen one, we dont know if mesohippus had the spots like a doe, or perhaps was dun colored with a feral stripe and zebra striping on it's legs, like many modern feral & undomesticated horses do, or if they maybe looked like a mini zebra.
Posts: 1596 | From: Illinois | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
I have seen deer and fawns when horse riding and they pay very little attention to horses. I can quite imagine that a fawn would want to be with other herbivores if there were no dear around because threats to deer and threats to horses would typically be similar - so if the horses run, it would be a good idea for the fawn also.
Blues
Posts: 207 | From: Woolhampton, Berks, UK | Registered: Dec 2005
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Sorry, that was totally pointless - but had to be said!
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posted
Is there something I missed about why this might not be real? Do deer and horses have some Hatfield-McCoy thing going on that makes this situation implausible?
Posts: 687 | From: Grand Rapids, Michigan | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:I have seen deer and fawns when horse riding and they pay very little attention to horses.
It's quite common to see both deer and moose standing and looking at cows and horses.
I've also seen personally a tiny deer whose mother was hit by a car and killed. It was taken care of by a family who lived nearby (one in the family was a vet a zoo), who had a dog who adopted it. She took care of it as if it was her puppy, and the deer even got housebroken (although it had to move out to an outside enclosure as it grew up). It was great fun to watch the deer and the dog play, as the deer played just like a dog do, chasing balls, wrestling with the dog and so on. In the end, I think the deer was all dog, except for the DNA. It was very cuddly and loved to be petted.
Sadly, I never had a camera nearby, there was some great opportunities for ultra-cute images.
-------------------- /Troberg Posts: 4360 | From: Borlänge, Sweden | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
The world is full of animal relationships that seem strange to us...
-------------------- This is where I come up with something right? Something really clever... Posts: 6552 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2002
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I know one dog who had a condition where she thought she had puppies (skendräktig in Swedish) and carried around rags or toy animals as if they were her puppies. Sometimes hedgehogs came into the garden, and she (very carefully...) carried those around too. It got so far that the hedgehogs didn't even curl up into a ball anymore when she did it, they just waited while they got carried around until they got an opportunity to sneak away.
The only problem with that is that hedgehogs almost without exception have fleas...
-------------------- /Troberg Posts: 4360 | From: Borlänge, Sweden | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Its maybe a false pregnancy? We had a basset hound who did the same thing, except she didn't carry around hedgehogs, but tried to mother the cat. We also had a Yorkshire terrier who would steal our cat's kittens to mother. She would let the kittens nurse and even produced milk for them. I think the strangest animal relationship I've observed was our cat, Stanley, and our first mastiff, Coco. Imagine a 150 lb dog trying, very carefully, to play with an 8 lb cat. Stanley often walked around with mohawks because Coco drooled on him and then tried to clean him up.
-------------------- I'll drive it ugly. You can't see the paint job when you're behind the wheel, anyway. Posts: 570 | From: Central Valley, California | Registered: Dec 2005
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quote:Originally posted by TuFurg: Is there something I missed about why this might not be real? Do deer and horses have some Hatfield-McCoy thing going on that makes this situation implausible?
I'm not sure if it's true for deer, but in the case of a moose and a horse, it would be odd. I worked at a trail riding facility for a few years, and the horses were *always* spooked by moose. They had no idea what they were, and were always very freaked out by them.
There were many days when we'd see the horses go stampeding up the feild snorting and flagging their tails, only to glimpse a moose in behind the pasture.
In regards to the OP, the pictures are very, very cute.
-------------------- My other car is a horse. Posts: 187 | From: Calgary, Alberta | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
When I still lived on a farm in upstate NY, I would occasionally see deer grazing in the pasture with our horses. They would very seldom be side by side, more about 15 or so feet away, at least, but they were there. I don't recall ever seeing fawns, though.
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posted
My tom cat used to bring in baby rabbits, entirely unharmed (though obviously scared half to death) and hide them around the house. Very odd behaviour as hes used to kill adult rabbits! I heard somewhere that tomcats will often do that.
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posted
I've always found much interest in how different species react towards each other. Sometimes, they seem to not notice each other at all... especially when they'd have no direct relationship in nature. But sometimes they would. My MIL's horses were always very interested in her chihuahua wandering around the stables.
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posted
Lots of herbivores form mixed herds, or at least herd in close proximity to each other. Think of African herbivores. More eyes = more chance of spotting predators. Perhaps it's not so unusual that some deer associate with other herbivores. it might just be part of natural behaviour that, for various reasons, we simply don't see very often.
quote:Lots of herbivores form mixed herds, or at least herd in close proximity to each other. Think of African herbivores. More eyes = more chance of spotting predators.
Not only that, but also more targets = less chance of getting attacked.
-------------------- /Troberg Posts: 4360 | From: Borlänge, Sweden | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
I've seen horses and fawns interacting before - and by the way, as was said, thats about the right size for a whitetail fawn in comparison to a 15-16 hand horse.
When I was a child, my father bred horses in rural Wisconsin. While the herd stallion was a very good natured and friendly horse (ironically, named Friendly... different reason though, was named after father's favorite movie - Friendly Persuasion) he was death on four hooves to anything that tried to kill one of his foals or harm one of his mares.
Eventually, I think the deer just started noticing that nothing predatory was allowed within the horse pasture during the spring... Friendly would either chase it off, or kill it if it wouldn't run. So they just started leaving the fawns in there.
When the fawns started getting ambulatory, they'd naturally start playing with anything that looked vaugely like another deer to them. Which meant they started hanging around with the foals.
Since the mares usually made Friendly babysit the foals while they grazed (we've never had a normal animal in this family... right now we have a two year old neutered cat who seems to think he gave birth to two 13 week old kittens. He even lets them try and nurse!) it was just natural that the fawns were hanging around him also. It wasn't particularly unusual to see our poor herd stallion surrounded by his 6 foals and anywhere from 6 to 12 fawns lol.
Eventually the does would wander back, reclaim their fawns, and go about doing deer things... usually only lasted a few weeks to a month and a half or so.
Posts: 58 | From: Colorado Springs, CO | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
I've seen horses and fawns interacting before - and by the way, as was said, thats about the right size for a whitetail fawn in comparison to a 15-16 hand horse.
When I was a child, my father bred horses in rural Wisconsin. While the herd stallion was a very good natured and friendly horse (ironically, named Friendly... different reason though, was named after father's favorite movie - Friendly Persuasion) he was death on four hooves to anything that tried to kill one of his foals or harm one of his mares.
Eventually, I think the deer just started noticing that nothing predatory was allowed within the horse pasture during the spring... Friendly would either chase it off, or kill it if it wouldn't run. So they just started leaving the fawns in there.
When the fawns started getting ambulatory, they'd naturally start playing with anything that looked vaugely like another deer to them. Which meant they started hanging around with the foals.
Since the mares usually made Friendly babysit the foals while they grazed (we've never had a normal animal in this family... right now we have a two year old neutered cat who seems to think he gave birth to two 13 week old kittens. He even lets them try and nurse!) it was just natural that the fawns were hanging around him also. It wasn't particularly unusual to see our poor herd stallion surrounded by his 6 foals and anywhere from 6 to 12 fawns lol.
Eventually the does would wander back, reclaim their fawns, and go about doing deer things... usually only lasted a few weeks to a month and a half or so.
Posts: 58 | From: Colorado Springs, CO | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
I grew up on a farm and I can tell you fawns are indeed that small
One time while cutting hay I noticed something in my way and I stopped and got off the tractor..it was a newborn fawn(couldn't of been more than 12 hours old)
The fawn didn't move a muscle when I was petting it...a fly walked over his eyeball and he didn't even blink...you would of thought him dead except for him slightly breathing
I picked him up and put him on some hay that was already cut and gave him a pat on the head for luck and by the time I made it around the field again his Mom must of come out from the edge of the woods to take him away because he was gone
Another time I was chopping grass for our cows and I heard a thump...I stopped and found a small fawn(but much older that the first one) had knocked himself out running full bore into the side of the wagon...I stayed with him until he woke up but he was still stunned and couldn't walk so I took him to the house and we cared for him until later that night when he finally could walk again
I took him back to where he injured himself and once let loose he took off like..well like a deer so I guess his little adventure didn't hurt him too badly
I should tell you most farmers don't like deer as a rule...they are considered pests...they eat our corn and worst of all they make these giant beds in hay fields by flattening the grass so when you try to cut it...it jams in the mower and you can spend hours unplugging the mower several times per deer circle
Let me tell you...do that a few times in the hot sun and you won't like deer too much either
On the other hand no farmer I ever heard of would ever hurt a fawn...the toughest farmer who might keep a deer rifle on his tractor year round just in case he sees a deer...even he would NEVER shoot(or even hurt) a fawn
Posts: 100 | From: Wisconsin | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
Just to add to what has already been said regarding the size of fawns, they can be extremely tiny. I've noticed that there is definitely a size difference between deer in the midwestern states and in the south, as well - many trophy deer here in Mississippi would be considered average back in Missouri. Florida deer are even smaller.
As for firsthand experience, I've visited the Bass Pro Shop in Branson, Missouri on several occasions. There are several taxidermy exhibits, and fawns are included. The poor things all carry plaques bearing the name of who donated them and all were victims of farm accidents - typically, the fawn was run over by a combine or other large machine in a tall field. Some of them were barely larger than my cats, standing maybe eighteen inches at the shoulder, if that.
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