I came across our resident Doe with her youngster. As soon as I started taking photos it was clear that the youngster had some significant injury between its shoulder blades. This was obviously concerning, however, the youngster appeared to be behaving normally and the injury did not seem to be causing it much distress.

These images were taken on the 14th of February. With the size of the wound, and its location, my assessment would be a dog attack. The wound looks too big to be caused by barbed wire or some such item. I’m not sure of any other animal that would cause this sort of damage in that location. Male antlers are just growing at this time of year, so its very unlikely that another buck caused this damage.

I came across the mother and the youngster again last night (23/2/23) and the wound appears to be healing. So fingers crossed the youngster is going to survive the injury.

An interesting characteristic of the youngsters horn buds is there V configuration which I don’t think I’ve seen before.

I may also be jumping to conclusions but looking at mum I think she may be carrying a new batch of kid(s). Of course she may just have been eating well over the winter!

The youngster did do a little bird watching in-between feeding sessions.