The family of Whitetails across the street has finally gotten used to me and the dogs, and no longer put their tails up or run away. Some days they let us walk within about 20 feet of them.
I dread Mondays. because it means I can’t be out in the forest during the day anymore.
Sounds goofy but if you talk nicely to them it will help relax them some. With patience (if it’s the same deer) eventually they’ll accept you as part of the scenery. We have several groups of 3 to 6 deer that live on / go through our property daily and we feed whole corn to them. Not much, I fling about 1/2 a dry quart out at dawn and dusk, fairly spread out so that they have to work at getting it. More like a little snack. The ones that were fawns when their mamas first brought them up to the house will sometimes get within 6′ or so and I have to be sure I always shoo them / startle them enough so that they keep a bit more distance than that.
There are mornings when I start working early and forget them. I’ll walk out to the kitchen and one of the group (usually the largest doe) will be peering in the sliding glass door at the kitchen looking for me and the rest of them sitting in a circle waiting. Either that or they’ll be out at the barn glaring at me when I go out to feed the horse and mule. The second I get done and start walking back in they’ll hop through the pig’s paddock and through the range so that they’re all waiting once I get over to that side of the house. It’s a hoot to see a deer running at you literally salivating and licking his or her lips. One of these days I need to try and get video of that.
The problem is that I’m one of those evil NRA members and a Conservative to boot that is bent on destroying the planet (so I keep reading in the NYT) so I would never be doing my best to keep a nice environment for all of the critters on (and off) my land, not just the pets and livestock (who are just big pets as well.)
I always talk to them, and tell them not to be scared.
I’m an evil NRA member too, and have worked hard my entire life to protect open space for humans and other less neurotic animals.
Also, certain kinds of music attracts them sometimes, just like cows.
I have experimented a bit. A doe and two fawns, keep getting a bit more curious, especially the doe.
Darrylb,
That is smart. Means you can shoot them from close range and the meat will be tender …
Truth?Seeker: Whaaa???? Is the discussion not fitting into your worldview?
No More Gore,
Mmmmm … Venison … mmmm
It is more about how the discussion is fitting into my culinary view …
I have plenty of food to eat, and absolutely no reason to take life unnecessarily.
It’s tempting to give them treats, but I don’t. They’re best off if they don’t become too trusting.
They’re blacktails here in the NW. Smaller than the whitetails.
My backyard is a little paradise for them. A (manmade) stream, pine trees, and some grass. The fawns sometimes are left here while the mothers go on a date, or whatever it is they’re doing.
I keep my distance, and I don’t stare at them. They eat some of my plants, but usually not too badly.
You would love it here, but the peshikthe (deer) and waapiti (elk) don’t get quite that tame, too many predators. I’ve tried. The flying anequoi (squirrels) and kwakwath (woodpeckers) will take peanuts from your fingers and the wiskilo’tha (hummingbirds) will land on your head. We have a humorous waakoce’thi (fox) that thinks he owns the place and barks & growls at everybody to leave. The muga (bear) occasionally rip the bird feeders down. The pele’thi (eagle) do some flyovers looking for petakine’thi, so the rabbits are not real tame either. The pelewa (turkey) sometimes wake you up and gobble at the distant thunder. The miyathwe (owl) put you to bed. The msithwe (rattlesnake), petweowas (coyotes), msipesi (panther) and peshewa (wildcat) are what to look out for. Oh, and the muga. Watch out for teeth, claws and fangs.
The poorer folk around here have always supplemented their larder with deer. While I don’t hunt myself, I often ask for, and get, the heart, liver and even tongue, which otherwise is left for the mobs of crows that descend after a deer is gutted..
I wrote a post called “Why We Don’t Domesticate Deer” that has been fairly well received, mostly because I attached a hilarious bit of writing by a farmer who did try to domesticate deer. (Deer are admirable because, unlike some humans, they are completely free in spirit.)
http://sunriseswansong.wordpress.com/2013/08/04/why-we-dont-domesticate-deer/
Thanks for that, I hadn’t seen that story for a while and it’s a great commentary on “wild” animals. We do raise deer domestically. It’s kind of a niche business like ostrich farming but even Purena makes deer chow. Remember that the Scandinavians domesticated reindeer (actually elk) way back when and still have them today as well as in Canada and Alaska. (I have to assume Russian as well, but I don’t know for sure.)
FYI don’t try the commercial/domestic deer feed on wild deer. In Florida at least they don’t much care for it. We had an early freeze one year that killed out the grass and my wife wanted to put out food for the deer. Knowing that argument was futile I stopped at Tractor Supply on my way home to buy a 50lb bag of deer feed. A dozen people in line… Christmas Eve and I’m buying deer food and no one said a word. I was amazed. The upshot is that they wouldn’t eat it. Just like any kid you give them stuff that has all the nutrition in one place and they want nothing to do with it.
Interesting how the wicked climate “deniers” are so aware and considerate of wildlife. I, too, try to preserve the natives here in Australia and daily log them in my diary.
A batch of 7 wild goslings decended out of the sky yesterday. Their parents throw them out as soon as they hatch so they can flutter almost weightlessly to the ground. They then all set off on foot for the nearest water hole. I came across the parents and the chicks lying prostrate in the grass trying to hide which is their only defence on land.
Funny how discriminating wildlife can be.
For example, in the national parks wildlife often loses all wariness around humans. The last time I encountered that was June 2009 in the Grand Canyon National Park with elk, deer, and various squirrels.
Then there’s Disneyland and the wild duck population. Outside the park the same ducks are properly wary, but just like the humans at Disneyland, crossing the gates into that fantasy kingdom seems to lop off ten or twenty IQ points.
What strikes me as inexplicably bizarre is when a wild or feral animal will approach a human to ask for assistance. I’ve had a feral alley cat drop her kittens in my lap while she moved them from one place to another. http://www.inquisitr.com/791796/fox-cub-with-head-stuck-in-jar-gets-help-from-humans-video/
I had to check up what a whitetail was after that post Tony. At first I thought it might be a bird but that wouldn’t make sense, seems to be a rather attractive deer.
As such
http://www.mprhunts.com/texas-whitetail-hunts/texas-classic-whitetail-hunt
Not sure why children would be happy being shown holding up a dead deer that had no claws of big teeth and was no challenge compared to a high velocity rifle? I’d like to see a 10 year old kid take a stag out with just his hands. Mind you the deer might run away and the kid get an asthma attack instead.
Send us some photo’s of the herd, best to shoot them with camera’s than guns.
How does your new place compare with out West? What do you miss and what have you gained living where you are now?
Andy
PS Still looking for the first Arctic minima post from you so I can flaunt my 2013/2009 prediction compared to your 2006 ! As you can tell I am feeling very confident !
You are a complete whack job.
He’s a Brit…that’s a basic definition of a Brit. You do have to excuse them, a bit, though, they are conditoned, from birth to have “Nanny Government” think for them.
Over there, all the deer belong to the Crown, so of course doing anything except looking at them isn’t going to be allowed.
Ah, the ghost of Robin Hood, poacher, haunts the elite again.
Is looking at or photographing the Crown’s deer permitted in jolly old England? Camera use is restricted–no First Amendment. Looking at deer means being where the deer can be seen– R U trespassing?
Just asking. In the United Kingdom, opposing the Global Warming agenda can be charged as crimes against the Crown. It’s not quite Galileo being prosecuted for heresy when he claimed that the sun, not Planet Earth, was the center of Creation.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/galileo-is-convicted-of-heresy
In this country you can be a sportsman/hunter that shoots them and eats them and mounts their stuffed heads or racks on wall and still be a conversationalist. Fact is that White Tails are more abundant in most of this country now than they were when the first deer census were taken in the late 1800s. Because of the elimination or reduction of their natural predators deer in many areas reach the level of an ecological pest. They become so abundant they strip the land of their natural fodder and start to starve. Geese have also reached pest levels in some parts of this country. Their droppings fouling smaller ponds they are so abundant.
I feed deer, squirrels, rabbits, and birds and enjoy watching them at my feeders. I have hunted and ate all of them, except most species of birds, at times also. Not much into trophies but certainly have no problem with those that are.
Why is it that the leftist “environmentalists” have such a whacked out view of both Nature and hunters? Carnivores and omnivores (us) are hunters. It is in our genetic make up. Our bodies were (designed or evolved, take your pick) to use both plants and animals for food. I always like to ask the radical vegetarians to look in the mirror at their teeth. Do they really think that those pointed canines are for ripping tofu?
The radical anti hunting crowd is even worse. They don’t seem to understand that Nature’s mechanism for controlling population is far more brutal than the hunting they hate. (Yes, there are some bad hunters out there, but the drunken good ole boy sadist is 99.5% fictional Hollywood propaganda.) Increases in the population of game animals usually results in an increase in the predator population. Most places in the world (wisely) limit the apex predators near populated areas in order to keep them from eating the radical environmentalists that wander in to their territory. Those territorial limits are what define the control limits of the game populations.
The idiots who wish hunting to be banned have obviously never had to deal with wildlife on the brink of starvation… and that includes the predators. Their moronic view of “natural balance” doesn’t include the reality when an overpopulated species eats everything down to the dirt and wood… then starves. That’s how Nature restores “balance.” They’ve never had the horrid task of having to euthanize animals that are so weak they can’t stand and just lay in the snow waiting to die. It’s also not something that I really wish for them to experience as the fewer of us who do know what that’s like, the better. Hunting is an important and humane tool for managing our place in nature and I guarantee that the vast majority of the hunters out take far better care of Nature and have far more respect for her than 90% of the eco-nuts.
The real environmentalists are farmers, ranchers, hunters among others who are people working with Nature who understand that it’s a chaotic and dynamic system that they’re part of. It’s not somebody with a political agenda that wholly misunderstands and misrepresents Nature to make her fit into their Disneyfied view of butterflies and unicorns where the rabbit and the wolf are buddies and man is evil.
Ah, but Man is Evil! Never mind that Nature is also evil–because Nature won’t conform to whim and fancy.
You know why the “but the drunken good ole boy sadist” is mostly fictional?
Because they are very good at self-eliminatiion.
if you like the “drunken good ole boy sadist” racking up Darwin Awards, take a gander at the modern Progressive:
First, unlike the old Progressives (and early 20th Century Eugenics) of Teddy Roosevelt’s era, today’s Progressives increasingly remove themselves from the gene pool–they steal other people’s children and do not reproduce on their own, much like the Roman Catholic Church–thus any genetic component of Progressive thought is being exterminated by Progressives
Second, the new Progressive defines “breeder sex” as perversion, mandating a gay agenda–and no next generation of genetic Progressives
Third, Progressives regard humans as an invasive species and work unabashedly at human extinction
Forget about The [nuclear] Bomb and bioweapons–Progressive politics are a toxin that might end the human race. Communism and Nazism are ‘failed’ branches of Progressivism that are still worshiped by Progressives everywhere. However, the three Progressive trends may make Progressives extinct before ‘Progress’ kills off humanity. Possibly.
Progressive thought is both environmental and genetic–don’t try to separate the two. The genetic component is being weeded out of the gene pool by the Progressives themselves. Progressives intoxicate themselves with alcohol and other drugs, but the most powerful drug used is the fantasy of control–the drug called Power.
Makes the “drunken good old boy sadists” seem positively sane, doesn’t it?
My brother said one of the nicest areas he has ever been to was a plutonium contamination restricted Zone in ORNL. When doing a plutonium contamination survey of the area he found than none of the animals feared him. The deer had eaten down the folliage so it had a rather manicured appearance..