February 2014

February has been a very busy month with hinds and fawns being brought into the yards for the first time.  At the start of February they were brought through the shed for tagging of the fawns, DNA sampling of the A.I bred fawns (for sire and dam identification), and a parasite drench as the fawns diet changed from milk to grazing pasture, at the end of February when weaning took place. It was very exciting to see just how much the weaner deer had grown in the 3 weeks since being tagged, the benefits of the Deer Improvement genetics clearly shown up in the fawns of the younger mixed age hinds.  With two of the weaner mobs we returned them to the same paddocks as where they had been with their mothers.  This was familiar surroundings for them, just no mum!!  They settled reasonably quickly.  The third mob were weaned into a paddock in a different part of the farm where they hadn't been before.  Two days later they were everywhere!! Thankfully after a week we were able to round them up and put them back into a paddock of Red Clover and Plantain.  We look forward to seeing what average weight gains they make of this high quality feed!!