Bottle feeding

[Porterwhitetail]

I have been bottle feeding my fawns since 1992 with various degrees of success. I have found that goat's milk works the best for me. However, I will be unable to get any goat's milk this year. For those of you have successfully raised bottle-fed fawns, what types of milk powders have worked best?

[HAB Whitetails]

We have been using Land-O-Lakes kid replacer.

[Porterwhitetail]

Would you recommend Land-o-Lakes kid replacer over deer-specific milk replacers such as Zoologic or Fox Valley?

[B_Whitetails]

This year i am using Fox Valley and i know many farmers who have had awsome success with it. Thats just my opinion. Good Luck!

[gcw matt]

I have used Zoologic for the last 2 years. I go mostly by the directions in the box and move them to 3 times a day as fast as I can. I have never had any problems with loose stool. I have a small farm, and I have only raised 8 fawns on the bottle but I won't use anything else. Also, Dr. Shipley has some good fawn guidelines on the Illinois deer farmers site that is very helpful. http://www.ildfa.com/

[ddwhitetails]

I will be using regular red cap (store bought) pasturized milk this year....the Millers (RDM Wildbunch Whitetails) did it last year and had the healthiest fawns they have ever had to date....now they also did feed the fawns all they could eat and they said they turned out to be the biggest...healthiest and earliest weaning fawns they ever have had!

[virgil]

I have used kid milk replacer and lamb milk replacer both seem to work fine no problems, but this year i'm also going yo try cow milk to see if i can increase my fawn size.

[allenb]

Red cap milk mixed with 1/5 the ammount of Sav-A-Kid milk replacer you would normally mix in water does very well.

[PaintedMeadowsBJs]

Yes...We are going to ... Red cap milk for two to three weeks than powder replacer added slow.

[Arrowhead Whitetails]

We will be using Fox Valley again this year. Last years fawns are the biggest that we have ever had. Most are bigger than the does from the previous year. It is a great product. Good luck to everyone this year with your fawns.

[Antlershed]

I used sav-a-caf Grade A ultra 24 last year, when i weaned the fawns they were about the same size as the mother fed ones, so i guess it did well. i am going to use the sav a caf goat kid replacer this year because I have a lot of fawns to feed this year and i can get it in 25lb. bags, and its cheaper.

[Rustyblaster]

All this talk about red cap and now I think I am ready to try it. Has anyone used unpasturized milk straight from the farm?

[ddwhitetails]

Yes Rusty I did use the unpasturized milk straight from my buddies farm....right out of the milk tank........it worked great and everything was fine....but I'm told you are living a little dangerously by doing this.....being it is unpasturized all it takes is one of the cows to have some type of sickness and you could wipe out your entire fawn herd for the year........I just can't live with that chance being out there........but otherwise like I said it did work ok for me last year.....

[PaintedMeadowsBJs]

Johne's disease (pronounced "yo-knees") is why it needs pasturized.

[Rustyblaster]

Good point! A cropless year of fawns would be detrimental to the ability to afford feed in the future. Maybe pasturized is way to go.

[Buck-R-2]

We have used Fox Valley for 2 years now with no problems.

[thunder]

Zoologic has worked for me!

[redwood_river_whitetails]

Used Fox Valley last year and my doe fawns were just as big as the mother raised. Had no problems with it at all. I believe that more feedings, less milk is the answer.

[brianjames]

I did over 50 fawns last year usig pastrized goats milk. They grew great. Bucks and does. I'm switching to Fox Valley this year because i plan on doing over 100 fawns this year, and its just too difficult to keep that much fresh goat milk on hand. I went through 80+ gallons a week last year.

I don't think what product you use to feed to your babies is as important as making it consistant and spending alot of time with them. I can imagine Having a fulltime job and feeding fawns 4x a day can make you a nervous wreck! I always thought that trying to get them to eat feed was the most important part of the whole process. If I can get them to eat feed 1/2 way though the bottle feeding process, then they are going to grow. Regardless of what kind of milk of how much I am giving them.

The key is, get a routine that works, stick with it, and have luck on your side!

[WICKED WHITETAILS]

For those of us that work 40-50 hours a week has anyone ever did partial bottle feeding? I have been thinking about it and if it would work. My thoughts were to just give a bottle once or twice aday when i check on them just to keep them friendly, and actually let the mother do the real feeding. My only thoughts were if the cow milk i give would clash with the mothers milk. My soon to be in-laws milk 90 head so i would be able to get as much milk as i wanted.

[ddwhitetails]

Jared I don't beleive it will work for you........to get the bottlrefed fawns to tame up you need to keep them in a really small pen for about ten to 14 days depending on the fawn.....the reason for this is that is roughly how long it takes for them to say ok your my new mommy and start coming to you........I don'y see how your fawns would ever tame down under the partime schedule.......just an opinion....hey if you find out how to do it let me know I'll jump all over that! Good Luck Jared!

[WICKED WHITETAILS]

My main concern is if I can get them to drink from time to time do you think the mix of cow milk and deer milk will be bad for them?

[ddwhitetails]

No I don't think it will harm them at all....if the cow milk harms them I'm in lots of trouble.......and i really don't see mixing them as being any problem.....just my opinion!!

[Robbie]

I think it depends on how tame, or not, your doe are. If they are not tame, you might risk them abandoning the fawn, because you have spent too much time handling it, and you need to consider the amount of stress on the doe and fawn if you are in there messing with it part time. If your doe are fairly tame, just spend lots and lots of time in the pen, giving treats. Fawns mimick mom. If she is tame and comes towards you (or at least doesn't flee) when you enter the pen, so will the babies. Fawns I let the doe raise last year will eat out of my hand now because I spend tons of time in the pen all year long, especially after weaning. Then they look for me to come and put treats in the trough and they gradually get tamer and tamer.

As for pasturized milk, yes there is risk with unpasturized, but the pasturizing process takes out all of the things that makes using natural, goat or cow, milk so great. I think if you are going to use pasturized milk, you need to ad probiotics and mineral supplements to make up for what was removed during pasturization. I use only unpasturized goat milk, and have had great success with it. My supplier runs a very clean farm and her goats are current on all vaccinations, so the passive immunities are in the milk for the fawns. I know the vet she uses, so I am confident her herd is clean and healthy. I am lucky in that sense, so if you don't feel you have that confidence in your fresh milk supplier, I wouldn't risk it, either. But I would add supplements to make up the difference. Whole milk from the grocery store (is that what you call red cap?) doesn't have half the butter fat content that unpasturized goat milk does, and has none of the good bugs and bacterias that establish pH and good gut function.

Just my $.02 - good luck to everyone this fawning season!

[steve]

do you heat the red cap milk up? if so how? how would you add probiotics and any thing else you think should be in there?

[ddwhitetails]

Robbie brings up some awesome points and that is one of my concerns as far as using the pasturized milk....i guess it's all in what you are willing to gamble.....my dairy farmer friend keeps a clean operation but I still feel uncomfortable with the fact that all it takes is one sick animal and it can be transmitted to all of your fawns.....I'm going to talk with the other Dairy farm where i plan on getting the red cap milk and see if there are things i can add back to the milk that might get stripped out during the pasturization process......we will see what happens.............Steve i heat my bottles up by placing them all in a tub of hot water........heat them up wo warm.......most of the probiotica and stuff you can get in a powder and therefore are easy to mix into your milk.

[allenb]

Steve, we put the ammoumt of red cap milk, mixed with 1/5 the ammount of sav-a-kid replacer that the bag instructions call for when mixing with water ,into a container needed for a feeding. For every 6oz of milk we add the following, 1tsp pure pumpkin, 1tsp plain yogart, and 1 scoop (included in can) Goats Prefer Probiotic Powder. Stir, stir, stir with a wire wisk. Place the milk into the bottles and put into a hot water bath until it is good and warm when placed on your wrist. Like testing a babies milk. I think the main ingredient is to keep the bottles, nipples, and all tools CLEAN , CLEAN , CLEAN. We use hot soapy bleach water, and rinse well after each feeding. I came up with this combination after asking numerous questions, and spending hours searching deer farmer forums. It has worked well for us,with no scours and good sized fawns at weaning time. I hope this helps in some way. Good Luck this season. Allen

[virgil]

After about 4 days you won't be able to get close to fawn if left on mother even if mother is tame. If mother is tame and you spend lots of time in pen eventually fawns will tame down a bit as Robbie stated.

[PaintedMeadowsBJs]

You will not get many doe that will let that happen...
We have Two doe that will do that... but you need to get them with her alot more...as often as they need...Because they need to nurse throughout the day because the doe can't produce the large amount of milk at once...
We did it to get the more natural milk in them.
The best thing we decided was she would clean them...So we ended up feeding them as she cleaned them.

[PaintedMeadowsBJs]

Also some fawn get to confused to take the mom back ...the nipple must be alot different.It's not an easy thing to try.

[Aaron_CCDR]

I tried this little experiment last year. I had one of the tamest does you will ever find. When she fawned I spend tons of time handling the fawns she had. She was fine with it and would actually follow me to the fawn to see what I was doing. After I left she would go check the fawn. A mother deer has it built in that you do not play with the baby. That is nature. Mom feeds the fawn and stimulates fawn to relieve itself. After that its done. You cannot compete with that. The fawn will more than likely reject your attempts to feed it. It has had the real thing. If you have bottle fed you know how hard it is to get the fawn on the bottle sometimes without mommas influence around. With momma feeding the fawn naturally you will have a tough time even trying to get the fawn to take from you. What you may end up with is a wild fawn that sees you as something that was trying to force things on it while it was young. If you have the time you may get to tame it down by petting it alot. I would suggest that you use a scent or bacterial killer that is safe if you do alot of handling the fawn. What I ended up with was a fawn that was worse than my mother raised, no human influence, fawns. The mother raised fawn were put in with my bottle fed tame fawns and eventually ended up being 5 footers. The mother raised fawn that had human influence ended up being wild and wouldn't take to people at all. This was just my experiment that went wrong. I think the fawn ended up being the worst attitude wise that I have ever had here. My deer are all very calm and most VERY tame. This 1 doe fawn was the exception to all of my deer.

T.R.O can attest to our deer on our farm. He now owns this mother and her fawn.

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b148/Aaronhome27/Lucy.jpg


http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b148/Aaronhome27/AllisonsFirstZooTrip007.jpg

[Aaron_CCDR]

Ya I know there is alot of mud in the pictures above. We were moving the deer out of the muddy pens that day because of 2 inches of rain over the previous 24 hours.

[T.R.O.]

That doe in the top picture is the coolest and most calm doe I have ever bought! You can go anywhere and do anything you want and she just stands by your side. Shes not the only tame deer off his farm though. When we pulled our new Tundra and deer trailor into his pen to load up the deer he has some very tame button bucks as well that liked chewing on the trailor wires. They were obsessed with the new "toy" in the pen. We had 3 guys darting and dragging while another guy had to do laps around the truck chasing the deer off of it. haha. Tamed is the way to go if you want to be close and pet them but when it comes time to moving them into another pen or push them somewhere, goodluck!! When the deer arent scared of you and wont run off to where you want them to go it can get very aggravating. But I would much rather have too tame than fence bangers. Bottle feeding is fun the first couple times and then its a chore trying to make them understand that your the new mom. Theres a 2 week span where its a pain but once they learn and as soon as they see you and come running to feed its back fun again. How many people bottle feed just long enough to let them make it on there own and who bottle feeds until they lose their spots. I know people that do both and they are definitely more tame the longer you bottle feed but its alot more work and too tamed isnt always the best thing when it comes to chute systems and crowding them.

[Robbie]

Brad calls it "herding cats" - but I'm with you, I'll take it over fence bangers ANY day!

I bottle feed for about 90 days, +/- 10. Some fawns start to wean themselves around 80 days, so I let them. Others, I start to cut back at 90 days and have them completely weaned by 100 days. They are usually the ones that want in your pocket all the time. The ones that self wean are more independent and adjust to being moved, etc. better, in my experience.

[TallTines]

We are just getting into deer farming & we have 2 does that will be fawning the end of May. It is nice to be able to go to this website & read all of your postings regarding raising fawn & the do's & don'ts.

[Aaron_CCDR]

T.R.O.

What we have done with our deer that are tame is get them used to treats. When we want them in another pen we go to the pen and shake the bag of mini marshmallows, They come running into the pen. Lucy was tamed that way. We try to give them treats and lead them around 2-3 times a week and they love it. Although everyone knows that you MUST take precautions when dealing with tame bucks. The only injury I have ever recieved from all the deer I work with was from one of our breeders that was not tame.

[T.R.O.]

I understand that!! The only problem we have is we bought several deer last year and each farm had there own little treats! When we try doing that we have peanuts animal crackers and marshmallows. some deer wont touch what some of the other ones love!! I dont know why. Its like they are afraid to try it. We bought 100 lbs of peanuts in bulk thinking that we would break all of our deer into those as their treats well we are stuck iwth about 99 pounds left and not a single deer will touch them. Dont know why. Anyone wanting some unsalted roasted peanuts let me know!

[Liveoak]

TRO,

They may not want them because theyre roasted. Our deer love peanuts but wont touch one that comes out of a plastic bag.... As for bottleraising, we did 12 last year on goats milk mixed with milk replacer, one gallon goats milk mixed with a gallon of zoologic then fix the bottles. We did 8 on whole milk mixed with zoologic the same way and had no difference in weaning weight but a big difference on the pocket book as we were paying $8 a gallon for the goats milk. We also fed a fawn pellet that had milk replacer in it. We'll know for sure in a few months but it looks like most of both groups got bred as fawns before Jan 15. In my opinion that says the were pretty healthy when they weaned.

[T.R.O.]

Steven,

I dont know why they didnt like them. We were buying the little bags from walmart and where ever that would only last 2 days because they were so small but since we were going through so many we decided to buy in bulk through a farm supply store and they taste the same to me. look the same and everything. I just know that its gonna be a few years before I finish off 2 50lb burlap bags of peanuts taking a handful at a time!!

[Aaron_CCDR]

are they salted....Mmmmm!

[allenb]

It is true, some are really picky, especially the bottle feds. We buy carrots from a farmers market in 20# bags. Most of the deer seem to really like them.We cut them in about 1/4 inch pieces, that way we can get about 10 days of snacks from a bag for 40 or so deer.

[T.R.O.]

Nope not salted!! bland ol peanuts

[Rick]

I believe you mentioned they were roasted, deer do not like these as well as raw but will accep them after a short time, the roasted are better due to a bacteria that the roasting kills so I am told, I also use roasted

[T.R.O.]

Rick,
You want 99 pounds of them??lol where you located?

[Rick]

im in ohio but have a fairly inexpensive source but thanks

[dswhitetails]

This is my first year to bottle raise fawns. When do you introduce them to feed and water and what do you give them? I have 8 fawns and so far it has been fun and interesting. Any advice would be appreciated.

[dcwhitetails]

Welcome Dswhitetails, you should introduce water and feed pretty quick when bottle feeding,some take to it sooner, mine usually start drinking around 2-3 weeks nibbling on greens,feed little later, i just offer a sweet feed at first. how old are your fawns? lot fun watching the fawns grow, offer fresh dirt from the start, very important, Dc

[dswhitetails]

Thanks! My oldest fawn is 7 weeks but he had a rough start!:( He only weighed 3.7 lbs when i got him and about dead. He is now eating about 3-5 oz per feeding(4x a day). He won't eat alot of dirt but he will nible on grass. The rest of my fawns are from 2 1/2 weeks to 5weeks. They eat dirt and grass. It is so cute when they run and play with each other. I am realy enjoying this. Now that I have looked at this site, I know to get them some treats.

THANKS FOR YOUR HELP!
DEE:)