• 6 months ago
A baby deer hand-reared by an animal rescuer after moving in with his family is best friends with his two dogs - even answering to her name.

Milly the fawn was ''mistakenly'' rescued from the wild when she was less than 24 hours old.

A walker thought she had been abandoned in the long grass by a walker who took her to a vets in Moretonhampstead, Devon.

Because she had been in contact with a human the vets believed the fawn's mother would not take her back - so rang local animal rescuer Steve Hopper.

Now a year later Steve, 65, has hand-reared young Milly with the help of his two German Shepherds - who have taken to her like family.

She plays with the two German Shepherd Bear and Fox like siblings.

Steve says she will come by her name when she is called - often when she knows there is a chocolate biscuit waiting for her.

Steve, a former police sergeant at Devon and Cornwall Police who has been an animal rescuer for 40 years, said: "Milly is pretty unique.

"I love the day-to-day contact with her - firstly the fact she survived was an achievement.

'Now part of the joy I get is seeing the reaction of people who meet her, in particular with the dogs, she just throws herself into them and that's the bit that really amuses me.

"It's something so unexpected but she doesn't care - she just plays and they play with her.

"She is part of the family - the shepherds took to her from the moment she came to the door and Milly actively plays with them.

"They are often all in the pen together, she will groom them, they will groom her - she'll headbutt them, they run around like kids - they just play.

"She's still young, so how long she'll carry on that behaviour I don't know, but she interacts with them and me."

Steve explains how normally fawn follow their mothers around to learn and adopt their behaviours.

But because Milly has had Steve and his dogs as 'parents' she has followed their patterns of behaviour.

Steve has three other bucks in his care, and even though he has introduced Milly to them many times, he says she shows 'no interest' compared to him and the dogs.

He explains how the way in which Milly came into the care of Steve is something he admits 'never should have happened'.

He explained: "She was a new born when she was found: still sticky and mucky, with her umbilical chord still wet and soft - she was a new born little fawn - and usually deers don't do very well when they have been hurt or taken away from their mothers.

"She should have been left alone as it's all about balance.

"Fawns won't move when they are very young, so she never should have been picked up but the vets didn't have much experience, so they rung me.

"I have been around animals all my life, but this was a crash course on the internet for me as this was the first time I had a baby fawn in my care."

Category

🐳
Animals
Transcript
00:00I've lived in the village since December 81 that's here in South Brent. I spent 33
00:08years in the police force and I retired about 15 years ago to basically buy this
00:13place but I ran the falconry business to basically generate the funds to do the
00:18raptor rescue work I do. Because I've got the deer pens when I've been chatting to
00:23the vets and the vet staff they know I've got the deer pen so I'm now
00:26starting to get phone calls about deer. Trouble is when normally it's because
00:31they've been hit by a car and they go down with shock very quickly and die but
00:36we've had one in in the spring she recovered and was she's basically I
00:42never locked her in she's in a pen that she could get out of when she was fit
00:45enough to get out and that's what I did with her and in the last fortnight I've
00:51had phone calls for two deer but one I took to the vet and had to be euthanized
00:57that was a tiny little roe deer fawn and another one was up in near Oakhampton
01:02and that died before they could ever get it to a vets they just go down with
01:06shock but at least the facilities here and if a deer does come in it survives
01:12it you know we've got the facility to look after it and release it from here
01:16once it's fit and well. Millie's the first fawn I've ever had and I know just
01:20from general knowledge and experience that deer do not well do well as
01:24youngsters they're very difficult to rear but when she first came in she was
01:28clearly barely 24 hours old the umbilical cord was still little soggy
01:35elastic band of a thing you know she was tiny but clearly newborn her coat wasn't
01:40even properly dry it was still patchy where it'd come out and when the vets
01:45rang me my initial thing was look get hold of the woman who's just brought it
01:48in get hold of her and say no take it back to where you found it and put it back but
01:53they said look she's just come in this has been abandoned dumped it on us and
01:56walked straight out I've got the various fluids for hydration so initially it was
02:00get her onto some hydration fluids just to get some fluids into her then it's a
02:05matter of she's so young can you put a straight on to milk or and and all sorts
02:13of issues so I did a quick crash course on the internet and most of the advice
02:18is don't do it because it's not going to work but the overriding thing was if
02:23it's a fallow deer get it onto goats milk the dogs were great they took to her
02:27from the moment she arrived and they clean her up from one end to the other
02:30liquor all over make sure she was clean and she just she just imprinted and that
02:37was that would I want her back in the wild ideally yes I wish I'd never had her
02:45but that that sounds quite horrible I've actually absolutely adored having it
02:50she's been fantastic it's been an incredible experience but in an ideal
02:54world she never would have come in yeah but the fact is that she did so it's
02:59down down to me to give her a quality of life where she's you know engaged and
03:03occupied all the time and allowing her to be a deer where we can that trust in
03:08the bonding that's the important bit and that's what I get from it

Recommended