Indiana flood almost killed these fawns

[AJMD429]

Over 9 inches of rain in about 7 hours here...
Mom bolted from a dog and got into floodwater and swept downstream - these guys wandered up our driveway...

[J Miller]

It's a cinch the kids can't keep the fawns, so what's going to happen to them? Will the game dept take them?

Joe

[Chuck 100 yd]

We raised a buck fawn some years back. when he was big enough to get around on his own he just hung around like a goat. One day my dad was working in the garden and "Fritz" was following him around like a puppy when a game warden stoped in. "You cant keep a wild animal captive without a permit" he said. My dad looked at him and said, what do you mean CAPTIVE?? Do you see a rope on him? He got in his truck and left without saying a word!!

[Andrew]

We raised a buck fawn some years back. when he was big enough to get around on his own he just hung around like a goat. One day my dad was working in the garden and "Fritz" was following him around like a puppy when a game warden stoped in. "You cant keep a wild animal captive without a permit" he said. My dad looked at him and said, what do you mean CAPTIVE?? Do you see a rope on him? He got in his truck and left without saying a word!!

That's funny!

[Ysabel Kid]

9 inches in 7 hours! I don't think we've seen 9 inches of rain in the last year!!!

[mescalero1]

ok, SO WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO FEED THEM

[AJMD429]

It's a cinch the kids can't keep the fawns, so what's going to happen to them? Will the game dept take them?
Joe

I'm not a big fan of "permits" but I do try to obey the law when possible, so we are in the process of obtaining such permits in case we keep them. (I used to have copperheads, and the permit needed required a telephone-tree and documented action plan "in case of escape" - since they were caught a few feet from my back door, my "escape plan" I filed was simply "be sure they are not in the house!" )

Raising them would not likely pose much of a problem, as we already have goats, several isolation pens and grazing areas, and close relationships with several veterenarians. Contrary to cartoon stereotype, goats pretty much browse and eat the same things. For tiding them over we've already bottle fed them with our own goat's milk, but they wouldn't nurse from one of our lactating does. We plan to try to unite them with a potential real deer mother this evening, when things settle down a bit; if the local herd or some part thereof comes close to their temporary pen (they walk within a few yards of it routinely anyway) we will see if there is any attempt at 'friendship' and if so, simply release them. I don't know if there will be any deer does which would be friendly enough to allow nursing young not their own (maybe some does lost fawns, if that matters), and I don't just want them to be coyote food.

We won't have any option for a few days; things are pretty bad here. We have to the north about 7 feet of water half a mile wide, and to the south we'll have about 3 feet through the night (the flood broke records all the way back to 1913, and nobody really knows how high that one was). There were landslides all over the county, and although the nearest wildlife rescue operation is only about one mile away in a straight line, it is four mudslides and one flooded area away for now. We'll know by morning what the other deer do relative to the fawns, and we'll have more idea on the permitting process. By then we'll be able to get out more easily.

Here's what we're up against...(there is pavement under about 2 feet of mud where I'm standing, and this looks down the road).



Here's a house down the road...



Here's more photos from around the state: http://www.wishtv.com/Global/link.asp?L=319991

Our buddy moving from California will feel right at home with all these mudslides! (Of course they only happen every 50 years or so).

Personally, I'd like to keep them and release them as soon as they are able, just because the "deer farms" make me nervous with the potential for CWD spread. I think concentrating wild animals in one place isn't usually a good idea. I will have to check out the reputation of the local animal rescue places (a friend who is a veterinarian says some are horrible and should be shut down they are so bad). We also have to be careful to not contaminate our own goat herd with any wild animal parasites or diseases, because normally we don't put goats in an area wild deer have been in within the past year; we fence it and leave it a season.

[Jaguarundi]

My wife thinks those fawns are cute !Sorry about nature's wrath .How did your property fair?

[AJMD429]

My wife thinks those fawns are cute !Sorry about nature's wrath .How did your property fair?

A combination of God's grace, my obsessive-compulsive over-engineering the dam for our pond, our house, our barn, and other stuff, and good old fashioned luck (I say in that order, but "luck" may be actually number two), kept damage to the homestead to a minimum. We have actually three houses clustered together and rent two out. Ours is on the lowest ground, and did fine but for a few hours you couldn't get up our driveway with a 4wd pickup even. The other houses were high and dry. One barn had all the stalls cleaned out for us due to rushing water flowing through it, but no livestock were harmed.

About 10 days maybe per year we can't go out one direction due to high water, but the other way is always high and dry but for maybe 6 days total in the past 40 years. Even then, in the past you could always drive through that direction, as there was no current and it would typically be 10-15" maximum. THIS time it was about 28" at peak (zero to peak was maybe about 5 hours and it will be back to zero in maybe 5 more hours I expect). The problem was that everywhere else it rained so much and so fast that there were flash floods everywhere; the interstates and state highways were all under water and closed.

Anyone wants to buy a waterlogged car - I'll bet there are some sales around here soon - aerial photos showed car dealer lots up to the window line in water...

[Jaguarundi]

AJMD429 that is good news and a stall cleaning to boot !

[JReed]

AJ
glad to hear you all are doing ok. We saw the weather reports looks like fun. As far as mud slides aslong as you all dont have wild fires to go with them I think we will be ok.