Whats up with this deer?

Never saw a deer so close to my house. It is <10' from my back door. My 80lb dog is in the picture window looking at it. Do you think its sick? Staying away from preditors?

Probably just trying to get at some of the tiny green shoots in you grass as even though snow is not around, winter food gets scarce. Deer don't see many predators these days...

Young deer, mother probably shot or hit during the season.
If you live in suburbia near some form of woods its just after a new food source.
My sister was telling me a about a 12pt buck that walks through her yard and eats the landscaping.
She thinks its so beautiful (even though the local herd destroyed $300+ of bushes).
That sucker would be hanging in my garage, unfortunately deer aren't conditioned to humans around here with 2000+ acres of national forest ajoinig my property.

It does seem to be very young.

Maybe you should perform a taste test on it??

Nothing wrong....just young and dumb. This time of year, they will eat about anything green, including your lawn. Mom probably got taken out of the gene pool in one way or another this fall. It will group up with other deer eventually.

Shrub munching deer get very used to people around and don't worry. Not quite free-range petting zoo, but almost.

I'm sure it's wondering where is all the snow? Well at least I am!

The posture of that deer suggests it very well might be sick. Of course it might just be super hungry too. This is the time of year when stress really starts to show on deer but this winter our herd looks to be in fine condition. We have daily visitors and they all look good.

It is looking for something to eat.

We have deer that walk right up to house (gardens and shurbs) and don't pay attention to us unless we make a sudden move towards them.

But come hunting season they stay away. Seems they disappear when shots are fired on the opening day of bird season.

It is not starving. If you can see the ribcage through the skin then it is lacking food or not eating. Those deer die.

I have had young and old alike looking right in the living room window. The neighbor (about 200yds) feeds them. They will walk towards me if I go out on the deck and they are near the house, especially if I have a big plastic cup in my hand.

I bet the rest of the herd was around not too far off.

They seem to spread out near houses and open areas here.
Especially the young ones.
Any disturbance and they bunch right back up again.

I've looked out my kitchen window sitting down at the table with my first cup of coffee in the morning and saw a deer nose. It was chewing on the back side of a yew up against the house.

Deer are usually pretty curious. The stance in the photo looks like it might be sick, but it might also just have been in mid walk/what's this on the ground stride too. If it hangs around and doesn't act interested in things (food sources, sounds) and seems sluggish, I would imagine it is sick. If ti hangs around and looks in your windows, moves it ears about at every slight noise, checks out every bit of low shrubbery, grass, etc...then it's just wandering though and checking out a possible new scrounge area

young and dumb to me. This time of year the older does are cutting their babies loose since they will be having babies in another months time. This leaves the yearlings to fend for themselves. I've got a couple young ones that are very curious and not very cautious.

That may be true in OK but you'll have to search far and wide to find any fawns born in March in these parts. It just does not happen.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought that! About the third week of May, here in the u.p.

The fawns here usually have spots.
That looks like a late born from last year.

Real late. Born too early or too late usually don't make it.
Mild Winter probably helped.

I vote suicide mission.


Was it stumbling? We have the "black tongue" picking up around here. Bad Times for deer. But the picture looks healthy.

Deer sometimes stray away from there usual area if there has been heavy rain for several days. Their trails lose there scent.

It actually was found dead on the dirt road behind my house. A neighbor also said it was hanging around his house. Wonder why it died? Starve to death?

Most likely just feeding. I don't think Blue Tongue is active now, nor is the disease that wiped out so many deer in the state over the summer. This time of year the deer would normally be stressed from survival during the harshest months of the winter. This was not a winter that would cause that stress. It could be sick, but if so, from an isolated incident like car.

The deer usually seem to show up in my yard (right outside the bedroom window close enough to touch) right after hunting season is over...

Same here, I saw deer 4 times during hunting season, with 1 quality shot that I passed on as this doe had 2 yearlings with her.
1st week of Feb(season closes Jan 31st) 3 deer were moving through the draw behind my house in broad daylight. Yesterday walked up the driveway and jumped 8 of them nosing around ~30yds from my woodpile