glockmail
07-19-2013, 09:59 AM
I have a large gully off my property and it has the headwaters of a small creek, followed by a creek with several branches off of it that eventually flows to a small lake. On the upstream side there is farm land so the gully provides a natural transportation path for wildlife between water and food sources.
It's dense Southern Piedmont jungle and only a small portion has ever been farmed. Until we had a tornado run through it years ago it had several trees hundreds of years old, including a 6' caliper hickory just 50' off my property line. For the past several years I've been working a foot path through it as I walk my dog off-leash, roughly parallel with the contour. I just use a hand pruner, sometimes a limb cutter to clear a path, and it's about 3/4 mile down to "the beach", which is the only flat area, maybe 500 square feet, along the creek where the dog gets a drink before we head back to the house.
This year I've expanded my garden by hauling in composted leaves from the Village and planted about 18 tomatoes plants that quickly grew to over 6 feet high. I was expecting a bumper crop of them but we're just not seeing it. I knew the deer were taking some but now I realize it's become the main source of food for a young doe. I've seen here in our daily walks a few times and she's been snorting at me from a distance. She's been using my path to access my garden. That's the price you pay is my attitude. She needs to eat and I'll keep her fed as the price of my admission into her world. I know about where she beds down so I avoid that area.
Yesterday during our walk my dog got not just one but two turtles near the creek. She's a 21# terrier mix and has always been a predator of small game. That's here job after all and when I moved here we had voles infesting our rear lawn, and she cleaned them out nicely. She brought both turtles to me and I took them out of her mouth, unharmed, and placed them back on the creek bank. Then I walked home.
As she usually does she stayed out in the woods. She knows the area better than I do and always comes home about ten minutes after I do. I don't worry about her, as I know she's got her little brain focused on the scent of a rodent or frog, and she knows her way home.
After I got back I started working in the garden, then I heard a loud crying about 100 feet into the woods. I know it's an animal but it sounds like a big rabbit or something, and I figure the dog is involved so I walked quickly to it. It was a fawn, looked to be no older than a week or two, and my dog had been dragging her through the woods.
I gave the dog a slap on the ass to show her my displeasure and to stop the attack. I looked the fawn over and she seemed to be unharmed. No obvious wounds, no broken bones. She was wet along her upper thigh and I figured she had just pissed herself with fear. She was too young to walk and she was about 50 yards from where I suspect the doe beds, and a path was disturbed in that general direction, so I picked her up and carefully carried her over there. I got to within the boundary of general area, again I don't want to hunt around for it and disturb it, and set her down. She started to crawl farther towards the area, so I figured that everything was good to go.
About 30 minutes later my daughter came home from work and I told her about it. She decided she wanted to check on the situation and I agreed to show her where I had let the fawn off but warned her that I didn't want to disturb the bed area. We walked back and found that the fawn had stopped crawling and was staring to attract flies. Not a good sign, so we approached her and saw blood on the area that had been wet before. Knowing she'd die without help I put on a pair of disposable gloves and took her home.
I put her on the carpeted floor of my office walk-in closet and washed the area with hydrogen peroxide. It cleaned up well and there was no additional bleeding. I could not see a puncture wound. Then I covered her with an old beach towel and closed the closet door to let her calm down and rest.
About an hour later we warmed a bit of whole milk up and fed her with a medicine dropper. She took maybe 6 or 8 cc's. I checked on the wound and it was clean and dry. Two hours later we fed her again, and she took a little bit more, but this time the wound had evidently opened up slightly because there was a small bit of blood. I cleaned it up again. I did another feeding at 10:30 and the bleeding had stopped. Each time we wore disposable gloves to avoid covering her with human scent. At midnight she was sound asleep, breathing easily, so I covered her up and went to bed.
I set the alarm for 6:00 am figuring I'd feed her once more then carry her out to the doe's bed area, and hopefully reunite them. But when I opened the closet door she was dead.
Best I figure she must have had some internal injuries. The dog had dragged her quite a distance and apparently it happened then.
It's dense Southern Piedmont jungle and only a small portion has ever been farmed. Until we had a tornado run through it years ago it had several trees hundreds of years old, including a 6' caliper hickory just 50' off my property line. For the past several years I've been working a foot path through it as I walk my dog off-leash, roughly parallel with the contour. I just use a hand pruner, sometimes a limb cutter to clear a path, and it's about 3/4 mile down to "the beach", which is the only flat area, maybe 500 square feet, along the creek where the dog gets a drink before we head back to the house.
This year I've expanded my garden by hauling in composted leaves from the Village and planted about 18 tomatoes plants that quickly grew to over 6 feet high. I was expecting a bumper crop of them but we're just not seeing it. I knew the deer were taking some but now I realize it's become the main source of food for a young doe. I've seen here in our daily walks a few times and she's been snorting at me from a distance. She's been using my path to access my garden. That's the price you pay is my attitude. She needs to eat and I'll keep her fed as the price of my admission into her world. I know about where she beds down so I avoid that area.
Yesterday during our walk my dog got not just one but two turtles near the creek. She's a 21# terrier mix and has always been a predator of small game. That's here job after all and when I moved here we had voles infesting our rear lawn, and she cleaned them out nicely. She brought both turtles to me and I took them out of her mouth, unharmed, and placed them back on the creek bank. Then I walked home.
As she usually does she stayed out in the woods. She knows the area better than I do and always comes home about ten minutes after I do. I don't worry about her, as I know she's got her little brain focused on the scent of a rodent or frog, and she knows her way home.
After I got back I started working in the garden, then I heard a loud crying about 100 feet into the woods. I know it's an animal but it sounds like a big rabbit or something, and I figure the dog is involved so I walked quickly to it. It was a fawn, looked to be no older than a week or two, and my dog had been dragging her through the woods.
I gave the dog a slap on the ass to show her my displeasure and to stop the attack. I looked the fawn over and she seemed to be unharmed. No obvious wounds, no broken bones. She was wet along her upper thigh and I figured she had just pissed herself with fear. She was too young to walk and she was about 50 yards from where I suspect the doe beds, and a path was disturbed in that general direction, so I picked her up and carefully carried her over there. I got to within the boundary of general area, again I don't want to hunt around for it and disturb it, and set her down. She started to crawl farther towards the area, so I figured that everything was good to go.
About 30 minutes later my daughter came home from work and I told her about it. She decided she wanted to check on the situation and I agreed to show her where I had let the fawn off but warned her that I didn't want to disturb the bed area. We walked back and found that the fawn had stopped crawling and was staring to attract flies. Not a good sign, so we approached her and saw blood on the area that had been wet before. Knowing she'd die without help I put on a pair of disposable gloves and took her home.
I put her on the carpeted floor of my office walk-in closet and washed the area with hydrogen peroxide. It cleaned up well and there was no additional bleeding. I could not see a puncture wound. Then I covered her with an old beach towel and closed the closet door to let her calm down and rest.
About an hour later we warmed a bit of whole milk up and fed her with a medicine dropper. She took maybe 6 or 8 cc's. I checked on the wound and it was clean and dry. Two hours later we fed her again, and she took a little bit more, but this time the wound had evidently opened up slightly because there was a small bit of blood. I cleaned it up again. I did another feeding at 10:30 and the bleeding had stopped. Each time we wore disposable gloves to avoid covering her with human scent. At midnight she was sound asleep, breathing easily, so I covered her up and went to bed.
I set the alarm for 6:00 am figuring I'd feed her once more then carry her out to the doe's bed area, and hopefully reunite them. But when I opened the closet door she was dead.
Best I figure she must have had some internal injuries. The dog had dragged her quite a distance and apparently it happened then.