Fawns are on the ground. Shoot coyotes

[603Country]

I've been mowing pasture here on our place in central Texas for the last couple of days and I have almost mowed newborn fawns 3 times. They are sure hard to spot down in the grass where their Momma told them to stay. So load up your rifles, wherever you are, and go hunt coyotes.

One of the fawns wobbled over to the pond and waded out into the reeds and sank down till all that was showing was ears, eyes, and nose. Smart. Cute.

So shoot a coyote for Bambi...

[scottycoyote]

yep there was one on the ground saturday here in virginia

[aarondhgraham]

Is it true that fawns have no scent?

I know this might be a thread hi-jack,,,
But I have often heard this from old-timers.

I would love to know if it's true or just an old wives tale.

Aarond

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[Brian Pfleuger]

They have very little scent early in their lives. It's why the mother eats the, uh, recycled food products, from them to keep the scent down.

Such is my understanding, anyway.

Up my way, there's one less for the coyotes...

[BigMikey76]

Is it true that fawns have no scent?

Pretty much anything that is alive has a scent. Momma deer does a good job of hiding baby's scent, though. I have seen does eating their fawn's feces in an attempt to leave less available scent or physical evidence for predators to follow . Man, nature is gross sometimes.

[Grant D]

Had a fawn cross my path on the way to work yesterday.Luckily I'm the old fart on the road everybody hates for doing the speed limit,so I had time to slow down and watch it cross.

[geetarman]

I remember when I was about 16 and hunting squirrels on the game reserve in Marshall county, Kentucky. Yes, it was legal.

I was walking through the edge of a bean field and almost stepped on a fawn.

The little critter jumped up and took off and just about scared me to death. Almost as bad as stepping too close to a covey of quail when you are NOT looking for them

Geetarman

[603Country]

I've never heard that they had little or no scent, but it does sound reasonable that they would not have much scent. I get a lot of fawns close to the house since about 8 acres around the main house has hog wire fencing and the deer apparently feel safer inside the fenced area.

[BIG P]

Your right the fawns are everywhere here & so are the coyotes.We been shooting yotes sence the season closed 31 so far.

[Double Naught Spy]

Is it true that fawns have no scent?

Pretty much anything that is alive has a scent. Momma deer does a good job of hiding baby's scent, though. I have seen does eating their fawn's feces in an attempt to leave less available scent or physical evidence for predators to follow . Man, nature is gross sometimes.

Right. You can talk to all sorts of hunters and find all over the internet that fawns have no scent and it is complete fiction. People will claim that dams will avoid their fawns to keep from getting scent on them. This is also fiction given that dams will groom their newborns and groom them fairly regularly during the early stages of their lives.

The amniotic fluid has an odor. The momma deer's tongue and saliva have odor. What is lacking from many fawns is development of musk glands.

Dams may eat the afterbirth as part of cleaning up, but as noted with numerous species, the afterbirth is rich in nutrients needed by the dam.

[rickyrick]

I've had a dry run lately and coupled with a heavy schedule, I haven't been motivated to get out. But now we've had lots of rain this spring that's still continuing. I suspect high critter activity now. I have gotten several good solid reports of pigs in the area... It's gonna have to be a good reason to keep me from going out this weekend.

[Art Eatman]

I've no clue as to how wildlife biologists do the measuring, but "they say" that there is certainly less scent from fawns and from cottontail rabbits than from other animals. That's from the guys at Texas Parks & Wildlife, anyhow.

Wiping a fawn's butt with a warm, wet sponge triggers the nursing instinct, if you try to raise one. Baby bottles work well. Mix Carnation canned milk in a 1:3 ratio with water.

[myshoulderissore]

So what I gather from this discussion is that my dogs are afraid of coyotes, so they clean my yard... Ewwwww

I am going to pop some yotes this weekend, for sure.

[JimPage]

Slightly off topic.

We found a fawn bedded down behind and up against a target stand at the rifle range at our gun club. It stayed there for at least a couple of hours before we discovered it. Then we close the range.

So the fawn stays where mom tells it to. Also, we frequently see deer wander across the rifle range while we are shooting. Aparently they are not shy of gunshots. We have to be very careful.

[Art Eatman]

Critters adapt to noises which occur with regularity. A half-dozen does regularly bedded down some fifty yards past my uncle's 100-yard backstop. Had a coyote trot rather casually across the Fort Bliss firing range when our platoon was training there.

[rickyrick]

Yep deer on army ranges are quite common. One 50 caliber range in Germany had a rule against engaging deer with the M2....

I enjoyed hitting the tank hulls 2k down range and watching the tracers bounce into the low cloud deck

[mrawesome22]

Kill any coyote you can, no matter the time of year.

Intrusive species just like us humans.

Sent from a highly hacked Android device using Tapatalk 2.

[Art Eatman]

Apparently, the "intrusive" aspect has to do with movement of the species to the east of the Mississippi River, and mostly during the 20th century. Maybeso to the west of the Rockies and then northward, but I'm less sure about that.

[geetarman]

Also, we frequently see deer wander across the rifle range while we are shooting. Aparently they are not shy of gunshots. We have to be very careful.

It was a few months ago that we had to call a cease fire at Rio Salado because 7 deer decided to play awhile at the 300 gong on the public range.

They gradually moved north and cleared the range. We were probably shut down for 20 minutes.

The ROs did let us use our spotting scopes to look at them but made everyone clear actions and bench the guns.

Geetarman

[dayman]

The coyotes move in after we kill off the less adaptable predators. SO they are intrusive, but only when there's a hole to fill. Say what you will about them, but they do a good job of controlling the rodent population.

I'm not sure what's worse: fewer deer, or more crop eaters.
Either way it's less food for me.

[ScottieG59]

I am in a rural area just outside Kansas City, KS.

Lately, coyotes has been very active around the house. They are also hunting much earlier in the day.

We also have many bobcat, but they keep a lower profile; quiet when they hunt.

Lately, there have been more verified sightings of mountain lions, mostly on the Missouri side of the river. The theory us that they are roaming in from other areas and may not be breading locally.

Even the local raccoons can be nasty. They get very large and sometimes harass the dogs.

If the critters become too much of a problem, I might go with a suppressor to minimize annoying people.

[Double Naught Spy]

I've no clue as to how wildlife biologists do the measuring, but "they say" that there is certainly less scent from fawns and from cottontail rabbits than from other animals. That's from the guys at Texas Parks & Wildlife, anyhow.

TPWD also says that a hog's shield is scar tissue from fighting other hogs, which is equally ignorant.

So here is some TPWD information....http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/publicat...1680_05_10.pdf

The fawns are born with cryptic-pattern white spots and are virtually odorless. These two features enable the fawn to survive the first few weeks of its life. Its natural defense is being able to lie completely motionless for hours. The doe, whose odor and size would naturally attract predators, purposefully leaves her fawn(s) unattended for hours at a time while she finds food for herself, and in an attempt to keep from attracting predators to her otherwise defenseless offspring.

As noted here, there is no way for a furred animal not to have odor or to somehow not have as much odor. They have plenty of odor, just not odor from musk glands and other mating-related aspects.
http://www.knowhunting.com/article.html?id=39

As noted in the following information, it would seem that the mother does staying away from the fawn much of the time is to help keep predators from being attracted to where the fawn is. Somehow that has morphed into the fawn not having odor.
http://www.buchananforestproperties.com/blog/?p=80

What is really interesting is that fawns apparently gain odor when they are capable of keeping up with their mother. Amazing. No, mothers may stay away from fawns so as to not attract predators to the fawn's location because the fawn isn't sufficiently ambulatory to evade predators.

Yeah, there are lots of biologists and wildlife people that make the claim about the lack of odor, but if you look closely, you will notice that none of them cite any particular study where they have learned the information. It is nothing but folklore.

Part of what is really ironic about the claim of fawns not having odors is that the fawns' mothers identify their particular young by, wait for it....., odor.

The odors of fawns may be reduced, but not because fawns are somehow biologically special in having stealthy body tissues that have no smell. It is likely because of the mother's care of the fawn, keeping it clean via anogenital licking and other cleaning, and then consuming urine and feces produced by the fawn. http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.230...id=56241224953 So yeah, a fawn may not have the nasty smell of puppies that often urinate on themselves and lay and play in their own waste, but the issue isn't because the fawns are special. It is because the mother's care of the fawn's toiletry habits and hygene.

[the357plan]

I've no clue as to how wildlife biologists do the measuring, but "they say" that there is certainly less scent from fawns and from cottontail rabbits than from other animals. That's from the guys at Texas Parks & Wildlife, anyhow.

Growing up, I used to hunt cottontails with my Black and Tan hound. He never had any problem following the sent of a rabbit.

[buck460XVR]

Around here, the biggest predator on fawns is Black Bear. They find them by scent also, but Bears are thought to have the best sense of smell of any animal on earth. For example, the average dog's sense of smell is 100 times better than a humans. A blood hound's is 300 times better. A bear's sense of smell is 7 times better than a blood hound's or 2,100 times better than a human. What this or whether fawns have no scent, a little scent or lots of scent has to do with shooting 'yotes, I don't know. But I agree.......

Kill any coyote you can, no matter the time of year.

[Art Eatman]

"Less" does not equal "none". FWIW, I've watched my Alsatian Shepherd trot right past a cottontail which was within a foot of the trail. Granted, he wasn't much of a scent-trail dog, but still...

So Momma Doe licks the fawn all tidy-clean. If the result is less scent, does the cause really matter?