W.T.F.

My question is how common or uncommon is it for a doe to have 3 fawns. Saturday night I am out in my back yard shooting and me and my wife spot a doe and fawn about 200 yds away directly across the road from my house, momma is in plain view but you can barely see the fawn in the high grass, so we watch her for a couple of minutes and I go back to shooting. About 10 minutes later I hear a fawn bleating and look back down there and they are out in the open, I grab my binocs to get a better look and I see three fawns and only one doe. I saw them again on 3 different occasions since then, including about a half hour ago while out back shooting again. I am just curious at how often a doe has 3 fawns.

Finch

I don't know how often a doe has three fawns but I have heard of them "adopting" an orphan fawn.

W.T.F.

I was thinking about the same thing, but all 3 fawns are very similar in size which was leading me to think that she gave birth to all 3. I do know that it is fairly common for a doe to take in an orphaned fawn though

mobow

I saw a statistic once, and I can't remember where, that 10% of does that reach their 4th breeding season start having triplets......That literature also stated that in a high deer density, that percentage is lower, and in low deer density, that percentage is higher.

W.T.F.

so in an area like mine where there is a very high deer population we are talking maybe 5%. I think that is pretty cool that I get to watch them everyday. If I can zoom in close enough to get a good pic of all 4 deer together I will post the pics. I have a good camera but it doesnt have that good of zoom

rybohunter

I have seen it a few times over the course of my career. It's not common, but it does happen. This one big ole doe had a little bit of a gimp leg and her 3 fawns were all BB's.

Siman08/OH

Around here we usually get a set or two of triplets every year. We have some real mature does so this might be the reason.

Greg / MO

yep, the more mature the doe is (4 yrs or so), the more likely the chances of her having triplets... that's one reason sound herd management dictates taking out older does.

Rick James

I have one family group of does/yearlings/fawns where the matriarch had triplets in spring of 05, as well as spring of 06. This past spring she had twins, I actually watched her licking the second of her fawns just a few weeks ago just after giving birth. APAJaws and myself both passed her at least once each for the last2x years in a row, but I think this year she is a target to get out of there. We believe she is 6 years old now, and resembles a cow moose.