Hours Covered: 50-60
At this point I had started my 3rd week if my internship. I have been getting into a routine with the ducklings, and then on to various odd jobs. However, there were now fawns at the wildlife center. They must have arrived towards the end of the previous week. Because they are too little to be outside all the time, they are kept in a small gated pen inside. There is a corner of the pen with heating pads, and the floor gets covered with towels and then a sheet over top. (Ok I apologize if this gets super confusing or rambly but there was a LOT of information about fawns). So during this time, any fawns that are brought in a most likely really small and need to be bottle fed multiple times a day. The door sheet for the back ICU where the fawns are in their pen had the fawns being cleaned and fed at 8am, and then fed again at 11, 3, and 7. The fawns were very little and not able to go outside, but when they get bigger, there is a pen in the back that they go in during the day so they can experience grass and the outdoors. Then they come back in for overnight. For feeding the fawns, they get 200 mL of fawn formula (the amount is adjusted based on size/age), which has to be heated up pretty hot to simulate the temperature that their mother’s milk would be. Fawns can be very picky about the temperature, and will not eat if the formula is too cold or hot. The formula gets put in animal feeding baby bottles. Jane showed us that you cannot just hold the bottle while they drink, but you have to pump it as though the fawn were tugging on their mother’s teat. This is to encourage their drinking. Eventually, when they get used to bottle feeding, the bottles can be placed on a feeding rack, and the fawns will drink on their own. Jane also spent a lot of time telling us about proper handling of fawns. Because they get bottle fed for so long and often, it is really easy for them to socialize to humans. Therefore, she emphasized no petting, no talking, and minimizing time spent in the pen with them. For cleaning the fawns, it is easier when they go outside, but when they are inside, you just have to clean up around them. This includes picking up the dirty linens and laying down new ones. Fawns that are this little also need to be stimulated after eating, because that is what their mother would do and they have not yet learned to urinate or defecate on their own. For this, we use a washcloth in warm water and gently rub them until they do go. I have learned that fawns often have diarrhea especially when going from their mother’s milk to formula. So far the stimulating was my least favorite part of my day. But being up close with the fawns really made up for it. Also, fawns must be clean all the time, especially if they are going outside, because any formula, or feces on them will attract flies and then they lay eggs on the fawns. Then the fawns will have fly larvae inside them and this is a whole other issue.
Because Jane spent so much time making sure we understood the importance of not letting the fawns socialize or imprint on us, I am again reminded of discussing imprinting in comparative animal behavior. I know it is important to keep the fawns from socializing to humans because if they do, once released, they will go right back to humans. This could be deadly to them. However, I am curious about if some animals are more prone to imprinting than others. The baby raccoons and other mammals are bottle fed similarly, but I have not heard that they too socialize to humans. For looking in the racoon room, many of them are aggressive towards humans even after being bottle fed for a while. So I wonder if this is related to differences in species, and that deer are just generally more “friendly” than raccoons and opossums.
After bottle feeding deer and getting more hands on with the animals, I have never been more excited to be doing what I am doing. I mean chopping up lots of raw hams for foxes and racoons is fun, but being able to work with the fawns and start getting more experience was exactly what I was looking for. I heard from another intern that the fawns get released once all of them are big enough towards the end of the summer, and I’m eager to see them grow and learn how to forage. I am still 1 rabies shot away from working with the racoons, and I am so excited for that. For the past couple of weeks hearing their chatter has been making me so curious to see what they are like when handling them.
