Deer, like all mammals, nourish their young with milk. This natural behavior is fundamental for a fawn’s early development and survival, providing necessary nutrients for rapid growth and skill acquisition. The interaction between a doe (female deer) and her fawn ensures the next generation is well-equipped for life in the wild.
How Deer Nurse Their Young
Female deer possess mammary glands that produce milk. These glands are externally visible as four teats located on the underside of their abdomen. When a fawn nurses, it suckles directly from these teats, often bumping the udder with its head to stimulate milk flow. Newborn fawns typically nurse four to six times daily to meet their nutritional demands.
Deer milk is rich in fat and protein, making it more concentrated than domestic cow milk. For instance, red deer milk can have a mean composition of 10.4% to 11.5% fat and 7.1% to 7.6% protein. This highly caloric and nutrient-dense milk also contains vitamins, minerals like calcium, magnesium, and zinc, and bioactive compounds such as lactoferrin, which supports the immune system. This nutritional profile supports a fawn’s rapid development. Fawns can gain 5% to 10% of their birth weight daily during their first few weeks, doubling their birth weight in about two weeks and tripling it within a month.
The Nursing Period and Weaning
The nursing period for fawns typically spans several months, with exact duration varying by deer species and environmental factors. White-tailed deer fawns, for example, commonly nurse for around four months. Fawns can continue to nurse for up to five months, but the transition to solid foods begins much earlier.
Fawns start experimenting with tender vegetation as early as two weeks, gradually supplementing their milk diet. By two months old, a fawn’s four-chambered stomach has developed sufficiently to digest solid foods, allowing survival without milk, though nursing continues. Weaning is a gradual process where the fawn reduces milk reliance and increases forage consumption like plants, leaves, and twigs. Does play an active role, encouraging fawns to forage independently.
Fawns can be completely weaned by about 10 weeks, but does often extend nursing until the fawn is between 12 and 16 weeks old. This extended period helps fawns refine foraging skills, important for their long-term survival.