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Whitetail Gestation

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MissionMan

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I have been seeing a lot of fawns being born/sighted around may 10 to 15. I'd be curious when there bred date would be based on their length of gestation.
I follow a few deer farms on Facebook and it seemed like there was a peak of dawn births on the 15th. I'd be curious if that relates to Nov 8th

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Good question!!!! That actually would really help pin down when the true “action & lock down” happen. Without knowing- im guessing 10-15th is peak breeding & conception.
 
Willie Suchy, may he rest in peace, always said the majority of does in Iowa are bred Nov. 13.
 
FWIW, about 10 years ago now I had to mow almost all of my 90 acres of CRP. I had zillions of volunteer trees that had to go per the NRCS before I could re-enroll in the next 10 year cycle. As such, I hired a friend of mine to mow with his tractor, while I slaved away on the ground with a chainsaw, getting the bigger trees one at a time. We did this on the first two weekends in May and I was amazed at how many fawns he came across on the mower. I forget the exact number, but I will say it was 6 or 7...still in what I would call early May.

Up to that point, I thought fawns were born more so in later May and maybe even early June. But they were certainly earlier than that. I suppose it is possible that he may have seen the same fawn more than once, but definitely there were multiple fresh fawns on the ground in the early part of May. Beyond that, I would say that the Nov. 10th - 15th time frame for peak breeding lines up with our observations.
 
OK, after posting the above...I then used the 200 day gestation figure and calculated that "my" deer must be getting busy in early to mid October. That kinda, sorta doesn't sound right to me. I am no biologist, but unless I am counting up the days wrong, I would question that 200 day figure. Assuming the Nov. 13th time frame is good, which I would think that it is, "my" deer are dropping fawns more in the 175-185 day range. Well, at least some of them are.
 
tons of studies on this by QDMA and others with roadkill deer and fawns. I always laugh when people ask "when will the rut be this year?" Its always the same!!
 
Just a general observation but I get all of my mowing done by May 24'th and I never see fawns. Any time I try to mow after May 27th-28th there are are new fawns laying everywhere. I don't mow anything but my yard and some clover in June
 
I'd say last week of May first week in June which matches up with the peak breeding discussed above. Breeding is on a bell curve so there COULD be a few real early and a few real late. They all can't be born on one day otherwise there wouldn't be enough bucks to get it all done, at least in my area where the buck to doe ratio is not one to one. :) Individual animals may have shorter/longer gestation compared to the AVERAGE. MDC doing a deer study now and they do show A FEW does getting bred late Oct. early Nov. based on the fawning dates but majority in window above.
 
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