Paternal Instincts or Duck (Doe with antlers)

[Chasin Tail]

Three times over the last couple of weeks I have observed a willful fawn that doesn't want to go back into our timber with its mother after grazing the soybeans in the morning.

The doe will sprint towards the timber stop and look back at the fawn to see if the fawn is following. When it doesn't come, she stomps her hoof waits, and then goes back around behind the fawn and tries to force it into the timber. The fawn must think it's a game as it jumps around and refuses to go into the timber. It stays out in the beans until one particular buck comes out of the timber and works this willful youth down into the timber. I have yet to capture footage of this event. After some discussion with a few friends the question came up "could this be a duck"? You know a doe with a rack. At first I didn't think so as I had understood they didn't have much more than spikes for antlers, and were extremely rare. However, after researching the internet (http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/volunteer/ma ... ndoes.html ) I read some have quite large racks.
I'm still quite skeptical but was curious as to the collective's thoughts. Has anyone seen or better yet shot one?

Ron

[Bryan78]

When I was around 8 yrs old a guy my dad know shot a Doe with antlers.  He walked up and saw that it had no male parts and immediately took it to a check in station (without field dressing it)where a Game Warden just happened to be there and showed it to him fearing he had broken the law (firearm tags are buck only here in Indiana).  The officer told him to check it in as a doe since it was a doe but he had to buy the tag so he could do it.

After checking it in he brought it over to show my dad who did not believe him until he showed us.  It had a messed up looking rack like a Buck with bad genes.  Nonetheless, it was neat to see.  I think it is 1 out of 100,000 does born each year that have this trait.

[Chasin Tail]

Well I saw it again yesterday morning. Moved the trail cam tonight over along the edge of our bean field as it was near that edge again. I will look in a week or so and see if I got it on camera. Not sure if a frame on a trail cam will tell me much but if I get lucky I will post pictures. Even with a good pair of binoculars at about 700 yards it was hard to tell much more than it had a set of antlers.