This past deer season, in November, I saw what I thought was a fawn. As I watched the deer from the stand, I noticed that the deer did not act or look like a fawn. So, I looked at the deer through the rifle scope. The deer was within 35 yards on a dirt road. The deer looked fully mature despite its size at about the size of a lap dog. The deer didn't have white spots (not all fawns have white spots) and God help me, the deer looked like a fully mature doe. I kept rubbing my eyes to make sure I wasn't seeing funny things. I didn't kill the deer because I would have blown it up with the .270. I talked with some deer hunters about what I saw and one of a deer hunter's friend killed a 4 pound mature doe. Others have heard about them (what are they called?). One hunter said I should have killed it to get it out of the gene pool. Have any of y'all seen or killed something like that?

All the time...back in Europe we call them roe deer Just kidding of course.
BTW I shot most of my roe deer (50 lbs on the hoof on a good day) with my 9,3x62.

Frans

I had to double look at the date on that post because I've never hear of a 4 lbs fawn let alone mature doe. No it was not posted on April 1st. Maybe that was a typo or maybe it was a over sized deer mouse.

Even the smallest key deer in Florda are larger than that.

What you describe makes no sense. A four pound mature doe, when a jackrabbit weighs about seven pounds?? Don't think so.

Drop the dope and place both your hands on the hood.

They are called "pigmy deer". They are basicly freak deer that for some reason caught some bad genes and came out much smaller than normal. Various things can cause those. Mostly they appear in areas with not much good food, or in areas with soil that have an odd mineral balance.

It's seems most people when they see one say that they are "does" but there are just as many pigmy bucks as does, but they don't have the nutrition to grow antlers, or at least antlers that you could see from a distance.

They can get as big as about 35-40 pounds. Many of these deer die from natural preditors, many more of the does die tring to give birth, or thier fawns die. They can breed with normal deer and have healthy fawns.

Me and my buddy have taken pigmy deer before, his was a 40 pound 8 point buck with antlers no bigger than your middle finger and tiney nub points. The one I got was a 38 pound six point with a rack about the same size, 4 points on one side and a spike with a brow tine on the other.

We called the game warden to ask if they were safe to eat, he called the vet and told us about them, and yes they are safe. And very tender!

[ 04-06-2003, 04:09: Message edited by: Atlatlhunter ]