Spring Whitetail Behavior

1 | Button Buck

In preparation for fawning season, a doe attempts to run off her button buck fawn from the year before. This behavior is part of the dispersal process that takes place each spring.

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2 | Does Fighting

Two does fighting during fawning season. This is common behavior in the spring. Does sometimes fight over an area to birth their fawns, or fight when one doe gets too close to another doe's newborn fawn.

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3 | Doe Giving Birth

Does give birth to fawns in late spring after a typical gestation period of about 200 days.

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4 | Newborn Whitetail Fawn

A one-day-old fawn. Fawns typically weigh 4 to 8 pounds at birth and are born almost completely odorless as a defense from predators.

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5 | Buck Browsing

A buck browsing on apple blossoms in May. Compared to the woody browse and remaining mast of late winter, spring is a time of abundant, nutritious food sources. That’s a good thing since bucks are now re-growing their antlers.

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6 | Bucks in a Food Plot

Two bucks feeding in a food plot in May. With some bucks getting killed during hunting season and winter and others gaining another year of age, new pecking orders will begin to establish.

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7 | Buck and Fawn

Here’s a buck discovering a newborn fawn.

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8 | Doe Nursing a Fawn

A doe nursing her newborn fawn. According to an article written for the QDMA by Kip Adams, a doe’s “nutrient-rich milk contains about 78 percent water, 8 percent fat, 8 percent protein, 5 percent sugar, and 1 percent ash. (It) has twice the protein and energy per unit volume as cow’s milk.”

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9 | A Young Fawn

A fawn standing in a field of daisies in June. Fawns can survive without a doe’s milk by about two months of age.

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10 | Protective Doe

Does are protective of their fawns. This one is posturing at a buck in velvet that is getting too close.

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11 | Antler Growth

A buck’s maximum antler growth occurs during the early summer, and depends heavily on the quality of available food and minerals.

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12 | Need for Minerals

Calcium and phosphorus are the two most important minerals for antler development. Providing your deer herd with mineral licks, especially in the spring, is one of the best moves you can make to improve the antler size of bucks on your hunting ground.

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