More new life at the ranch
This was certainly the weekend for the inexpressibly adorable.
If the presence of 3 kittens playing together wasn't cute enough, Sunday morning/afternoon, I awoke to someone at my bedroom door saying "..come quick. There is a fawn nursing.". I leapt out of bed and hurried into the front room. Mostly done nursing at this point, there was a tiny spotty fawn with her mother. Very tiny. Wait... Observances over time strongly suggest that this wee one was just born in the last 12 hours.
Mother was still washing baby all over. Baby was bouncy, but still very unsteady when moving slowly or standing still. I've not yet seen such a tiny fawn and with such vibrant spots. Every sign we saw confirmed my theory that this little girl just entered the world. Happy birthday little one!
As the day progressed, mother and baby laid down and rested in the same spot that momma had been haunting for weeks now. I think that the ranch has finally received the ultimate honor of the birthing a fawn in the immediate house area. We believe that this is the same deer that licked Orion a couple years back, which would make this new mommy the same age, roughly, as the barn cats. Which makes sense, as young mother deer tend to just have one baby and the more mature mothers almost always have two.
We watched the little one nuzzle and sniff the area where we are theorizing she was born. Then the little one trotted directly over to the window where we were all watching, wandered under the rhodie, and settled down to rest for the next hour. Squeeeee! We were all incredibly charmed and simply melted at the trust and adorable-ness. Mother wandered away for a while to graze, then eventually returned to pick up baby. Usually, a mother settles the fawn in a nice nest of tall grass with an admonition to stay still and quiet. This seemed like the same thing...just only 2 feet from the house. Our view from the window was...phenomenal.
I think all of us out at the ranch will shortly expire from way too much sweetness.
If the presence of 3 kittens playing together wasn't cute enough, Sunday morning/afternoon, I awoke to someone at my bedroom door saying "..come quick. There is a fawn nursing.". I leapt out of bed and hurried into the front room. Mostly done nursing at this point, there was a tiny spotty fawn with her mother. Very tiny. Wait... Observances over time strongly suggest that this wee one was just born in the last 12 hours.
Mother was still washing baby all over. Baby was bouncy, but still very unsteady when moving slowly or standing still. I've not yet seen such a tiny fawn and with such vibrant spots. Every sign we saw confirmed my theory that this little girl just entered the world. Happy birthday little one!
As the day progressed, mother and baby laid down and rested in the same spot that momma had been haunting for weeks now. I think that the ranch has finally received the ultimate honor of the birthing a fawn in the immediate house area. We believe that this is the same deer that licked Orion a couple years back, which would make this new mommy the same age, roughly, as the barn cats. Which makes sense, as young mother deer tend to just have one baby and the more mature mothers almost always have two.
We watched the little one nuzzle and sniff the area where we are theorizing she was born. Then the little one trotted directly over to the window where we were all watching, wandered under the rhodie, and settled down to rest for the next hour. Squeeeee! We were all incredibly charmed and simply melted at the trust and adorable-ness. Mother wandered away for a while to graze, then eventually returned to pick up baby. Usually, a mother settles the fawn in a nice nest of tall grass with an admonition to stay still and quiet. This seemed like the same thing...just only 2 feet from the house. Our view from the window was...phenomenal.
I think all of us out at the ranch will shortly expire from way too much sweetness.