Me hand-feeding a deer named Jill

Thank you for sharing that wonderful moment, Phoenix.
I've never been that close to a deer in my life.

:)
 

Thanks.

My husband and I live on 6 acres. It is on a hillside with trees and a few clearings. There are deer and a lot of wild turkeys, as well as other wild animals. My husband is doing a while turkey study and keeps a journal. We scatter just enough grain for the turkeys to keep them coming around. In the process some of the turkeys have become very friendly and take bread bits and grain from our hands. Sometimes they even stand on our feet. There are about five deer that make our property their home. One doe, Maude, produces twins every year. She leaves them here on the property at times when they are young, while she goes out and forages. That means she feels safe leaving them here. Two years ago her kids were Jack and Jill. So Jill grew up here. Since we leave a scattering of grain, the deer started eating it too. Eventually, we put out larger piles for the deer to see if they would eat it. Jill was the first one who did. Now so do Maude, Jill and the three yearlings - Bumper, Yin and Yang. Yin and Yang Maude's kids last year. When one of the deer wants us to leave them a pile of grain, she/he nods her/his head toward the ground. We put down a pile, and the deer eats it. A couple of days ago when I was feeding Jill, she allowed me to pet her muzzle. Today we'd fed her a a couple of piles of grain. When she came back again I filled my hand and offered it to her. She started nibbling the grain from my palm. Her nose was wet. Her breath was warm. My husband ran back into the house and got the camera. I must have fed her a dozen handfuls, so he could get a shot. Then he fed her grain from his hand. To me, it doesn't get better than this.
 
You are living a wonderful life. So many people would be envious.

I rejoice in your happiness of living with nature.
 
Phoenix said:
Thanks.

My husband and I live on 6 acres. It is on a hillside with trees and a few clearings. There are deer and a lot of wild turkeys, as well as other wild animals. My husband is doing a while turkey study and keeps a journal. We scatter just enough grain for the turkeys to keep them coming around. In the process some of the turkeys have become very friendly and take bread bits and grain from our hands. Sometimes they even stand on our feet. There are about five deer that make our property their home. One doe, Maude, produces twins every year. She leaves them here on the property at times when they are young, while she goes out and forages. That means she feels safe leaving them here. Two years ago her kids were Jack and Jill. So Jill grew up here. Since we leave a scattering of grain, the deer started eating it too. Eventually, we put out larger piles for the deer to see if they would eat it. Jill was the first one who did. Now so do Maude, Jill and the three yearlings - Bumper, Yin and Yang. Yin and Yang Maude's kids last year. When one of the deer wants us to leave them a pile of grain, she/he nods her/his head toward the ground. We put down a pile, and the deer eats it. A couple of days ago when I was feeding Jill, she allowed me to pet her muzzle. Today we'd fed her a a couple of piles of grain. When she came back again I filled my hand and offered it to her. She started nibbling the grain from my palm. Her nose was wet. Her breath was warm. My husband ran back into the house and got the camera. I must have fed her a dozen handfuls, so he could get a shot. Then he fed her grain from his hand. To me, it doesn't get better than this.
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How great to be able to interact directly with these wonderful animals! I would love that.
 
What a beautiful picture:love_heart::love_heart::love_heart: Isn't that an amazing feeling?

Best buddy lives in crowded suburbs. But for years he has talked about Daisy. A doe that lives in the woods behind a local church. They have all but destroyed the nature reserves around here. Condominiums generate money and nature reserves don't. Then they wonder why deer are eating all the garden plants...and getting smashed on roadways...bastards.

One day we were visiting and I was getting things from the car. I sensed motion behind me and I turn to a deer a full foot taller than me. It was Daisy, best buddy brought out potato rolls and we all hand fed her. Not much different than feeding my pups. Turns out she has lived in the neighborhood maybe eight years. She's had several babies and all the families leave food or water in their yards.

I watched her walk yard to yard. If they would replant the forest instead of bigger roads and more condos...guess none of them read "The Lorax" as kids.
 
She told us in utero that her name was Jill. grin. Yes, we are fortunate. We took a lot of risks to be able to live here. We gave up our jobs, our homes in the city and moved here in 1991 to write fulltime. We lived on $750 per month for the first fifteen years. We had no health insurance. We had to pay property taxes, and car insurance and still be able to survive. We bought the house just before the housing costs skyrocketed here.

We live in an area where hunting is the norm. So after we fall in love with the animals, often others shoot them, and it breaks our hearts.

But I'll tell you what, when my husband nearly died when his colon was removed, and each day I drove 120 miles round trip to see him in the hospital, at night I came home to this place and nature cuddled in around me.
 
Phoenix said:
She told us in utero that her name was Jill. grin. Yes, we are fortunate. We took a lot of risks to be able to live here. We gave up our jobs, our homes in the city and moved here in 1991 to write fulltime. We lived on $750 per month for the first fifteen years. We had no health insurance. We had to pay property taxes, and car insurance and still be able to survive. We bought the house just before the housing costs skyrocketed here.

We live in an area where hunting is the norm. So after we fall in love with the animals, often others shoot them, and it breaks our hearts.

But I'll tell you what, when my husband nearly died when his colon was removed, and each day I drove 120 miles round trip to see him in the hospital, at night I came home to this place and nature cuddled in around me.
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:sorry:
 
Ruthanne said:
:eek:kay:I'm so glad things are better. Yes each day is new, that is something I tell myself a lot since many days seem to go in ways I don't always want.
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Same here. I remember the statement from somewhere - happiness is a decision. I can't always manage happiness, but I work on peace of mind.
 
Phoenix said:
Same here. I remember the statement from somewhere - happiness is a decision. I can't always manage happiness, but I work on peace of mind.
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I work on gratefulness for what I have. Like I have a roof over my head and once I did not. I can't have or could never have had kids but I have my babies that are my dog and 2 birds. I have food to eat and a car even if it is 17 years old, it still runs. I have my health still, have some health problems but they are not very serious yet. So I am grateful and I guess that leads to peace of mind. :)
 
What a great achievement. You better stock up for winter. She will be at your door constantly now. And wait 'til she makes you a grandmother. :) Lots of little ones to feed too....... hopefully!

Is she a little red deer doe? Over here we call the females hinds and males stags. The young are calves. Now there is a useless piece of info for you. :)
 
You appear to have a beautiful life with the wildlife around you. That was a lovely photo. Thanks for sharing. I'm envious. :eek:
 
I recently learned why it is not a good idea to feed deer. I`m not,in any way,slamming you for doing it,but when I read the following,I cringed at the thought of any deer going through this.....

Nice intentions sometimes go sour. Deer GI tracts can be like goats and sheep. Salt lick is harmless, but the wrong food, new food...can boggle the system and cause them bloat and an agonizing death. Extra nutrition to deer also potentially screws up wildlife biologist analysis of populations and habitat when a hunter shoots that deer and delivers samples for study as required by law. Deer are in over-population now -- destroying habitat, expanding the bear population. Because lions tend to kill and cache their prey awhile, bears have been sniffing them out and stealing food from the lions -- causing the lions to expand territory and run-in more with human populations. Feeding the deer only establishes trails into residential areas, and then the lions and bears come. Then, they get killed under predation permit where endangering humans or destroying livestock. Actually brings more deer and probability of more uneccessary animal deaths closer to the road she fears. Of course, only evil deer killers are made aware of these things by state wildlife biologists and hunting literature.
 
Then he continued.....I used to raise goats over a decade. Just changing their supplemental hay or adding some grain for extra nutrition too fast and too much would sometimes cause bloat. Ruminants have a potent GI tract -- loaded with some of the worst bacterial, yeast, and fungal strains....so much so that terrorist bio labs actually use goats as weapons factories. Sheep and deer are similar GI tract. Normally, the acid-alkaline balance helps keep the gut flora in harmony -- giving them tremendous ability to digest just about anything off the landscape. The least disturbance, however -- especially from too much grain-feeding, which is not their natural diet, and usually too loaded with sugar (and molasses) and lacks fiber....will induce bloat. Grain supplement in goats is best at 1/4 to 1 cup gradually introduced per day. You can't just spread it in a trough and let some of the herd overfeed, or at least one case of bloat is maybe 70% certain in a herd of about 40. Of the bloat cases, about 30% of them can be saved by intervention; About 100% lethal where not. Usually best to just put the animal down early, as the end result is about 24 to 36 hours of painful, agonizing, slow death as the stomach and GI tract are overpressurized. They cannot burp it out into relief. Guts just expand like a balloon. The bacteria run rampant fast -- causing more pressure. The bacterial byproducts cause inflammation, burning, rapid ulceration, toxins into the blood, paralysis, overall misery, wailing, and eventual death as the heart is squeezed by the GI tract into failure. So, it may seem like a stupid nazi law, but feeding anything unusual to ruminants other than mildly and individually is highly likely to kill them slowly with great agony and cruelty than any evil hunter or rancher ever does. Over the years, I lost several goats to bloat before knowing how to prevent it. With extensive effort, was only able to save about 30% of those cases, where caught early. In the wild, they have nobody to help them out of that misery. Bottom line: Just 1 to 2 cups of grain consumed by a cute little fawn with a GI tract still developing -- even as commercial deer feed -- is highly probable of causing them an agonizing death. Adults will tend to survive more, but also hog and consume more of the feed. Best to just leave them alone, let them pass, and, if insistent on feeding them anything....at least toss them choice of only yard and garden scraps, not basically grain candy. Grain is lethal. Ranchers get carried away with grain to fatten up livestock, but it is not their natural diet and always leads to more death where poorly managed.
Like · Reply · 2 · 9 May at 07:59
 
Phoenix said:
We live in an area where hunting is the norm. So after we fall in love with the animals, often others shoot them, and it breaks our hearts.
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Then why bait them in and feed them, to have this outcome?
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That makes no sense to me.

Once deer are fed, especially hand fed, they loose the sense to fear humans.
 
I guess the deer that live near my friend's house are particularly lucky. Each family puts out a rotation of different food choices and big pots of fresh water. Just in maybe eight suburban blocks and a wooded church ground they've created their own community deer refuge.
 
Mrs. Robinson, we feed them grain. There's cracked corn in it, plus wheat and barley. There is no additive in the grain we buy. It will not hurt them. Last summer when the drought hit, they nearly died. They were emaciated. I will not let an animal die if I can help it. Not gonna happen. I've been poor and hungry. I will not allow that to happen to them. I am not doing this out of ignorance. I know about animals.

I only fed Jill as much as I did so my husband can get the picture. Normally it's a nominal amount. Same with the turkeys.

We are not baiting them in here. They lived here when we arrived. Bear only show up when the apples are on the neighbors' trees in October. Other wildlife show up when the loggers rape more trees off the land where they live. We are the intruders. Humans have overpopulated the planet and continue to do that. Humans destroy the ozone, the water purity, pollute the sky, destroy the soil with chemicals. We are the ones who need to be away from this planet, so that the animals and environment can recover.

Over population is area specific. There is no over population here. Around here the hunters and the cougar take out the excess. The state of Oregon Dept of Fish and Wildlife manages them carefully.

One size never fits all.

Jill looked darker than she was because of the outside lighting at the time. They are quite a bit lighter than that this time of year. They are black tailed deer, I believe.
 
It's ridiculous where we are...Hurricane Sandy ripped through the local nature reserves four years ago. Even before that the woods were sparse. There were many big proud trees probably more than a hundred years old. But in healthy woods the growth is dense. Some places you could see ahead a mile or more.

Sandy threw the young growth around like so many matchsticks, some of the grand old trees...far too many of the grand old trees...ended up toppled. They're still there with great walls of roots surrounding the trails. But rather than trying to save what they could, or starting a coordinated program to lay new seedlings, they just carted away what blocked the roads.

But woods and wildlife don't bring in revenue. So they build more and more overpriced condos. They bigger the factories and bigger the roads. That line is from the book "The Lorax", guess no one learned anything from that story. The ugliest thing is when they let the hunters loose a few times a year. Someday there will be no woods or deer up there at all.
 

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