White-tailed deer (domesicated vs wild)

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What are the differences between deer on a farm and deer in the wild (mating habits)?

-- John Allen Tafelski (jat_mustang@yahoo.com), April 18, 2001

Answers

NONE,, unless hormones are being injected,, that will screw up their clock

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), April 18, 2001.

Are you sure the deer on the farm are white-tailed? Usually man does not have a lot of success trying to domesticate wild animals confined to small spaces, There are several Western deer farms on very large ranches that use red deer (Elk). I have also seen smaller "farms" out west that are using some species of European deer. I am only a causal observer; however, I do travel 30,000 miles a year in the Western states each summer and never recall seeing white-tailed deer on a farm. Small privately run zoos, but not being "farmed" for meat or other products. (Note: there are many small herds of buffalo in the West, maybe under 40-50 in each herd. Also a large ranch in SD (over 20,000 acres) that raises buffalo. I have heard of other large ranches in Montana raising big herds of Buffalo, but not exclusively.)

-- Lynn Goltz (lynngoltz@aol.com), April 19, 2001.

We found an orphaned fawn and brought him home to raise. He wouldn't drink from a bottle but did put his nose clear down in a bucket to drink milk. He'd come up snorting and trying like crazy to catch his breath. We had him 5 years in a huge and TALL fenced enclosure. We finally learned during mating season to close him in his building at night. During the day he was fine but at night he'd get out and roam the countryside. We had neighbors call us a number of times to come and get him before we learned to close the door on his building.

He was so tame and the whole county used to come by and feed him apples and carrots but his favorite thing of all was Doritos. He loved salty things.

He was a wonderful pet BUT we never went in with him while he had his antlers. He played too rough and could have hurt or even killed us with no problem. They're hooves are also very sharp.

As far as we could ever tell the mating habits of wild deer and Willie were the same. Once the male starts getting his antlers he gets feisty, although mating season doesn't occur for weeks. When he loses his antlers about Feb. or March (here in Iowa) they settle down again but still not real trustworthy.

The females, of course, are safer because of no antlers but still have the sharp hooves. As far as domesticating they are like most animals.......they bear lots of watching and caution. Even domesticated cow, horses etc. will kick LOL

Anna

-- Anna in Iowa (countryanna54@hotmail.com), April 24, 2001.


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