I walk a greenbelt trail everyday over lunch, and I usually see a handful of deer meandering through it. A little while back I saw a doe with 4 fawns, 3 suckling on her and the fourth a couple feet away, and no other does around. Got me wondering how often something like that happens.

This was the best picture I got. I only had my phone on me and wanted to keep my distance, so it's not great. You can still make out all 4 though.

I've seen a doe with triplets, but never 4. Would imagine the one on the right not sucking is not hers

They are almost certainly not all hers. The does will take on orphans. She is probably an older experienced doe that just produces a lot of milk. Probably not a shooter.

I shot a doe one year that had triplets. Didn't realized it when I pulled the trigger. Felt kinda bad.

Whitetails can have trips but it is very rare. Elk are only suppose to have 1 calf but we had an elk cow who threw twins every year.
I have never seen a WT doe take on an orphan fawn to stay and raise. But we have seen a doe be with another does fawns for a short time. They may try to suckle her but she will not let them do it but for very long.... less than a minute. Then those fawns will get back to their own mom.
I have witnessed 4-5 fawns be with a single doe for a short period. Like that doe is the one that watched them for a while so the other does have like a moms time out. Then they all go back to their moms in an hour or so.

I saw a doe bring out trips several times last yr and I got curious because I had only every seen singles and twins. So I started reading around, turns out if herd is in good shape with ample food and water supply..... as many as 20% could have trips..... and I believe I read they probably wouldnt all be same dad/buck.

Whitetails, when fertilized, by nature start with twins. One buck and one doe. Nourishment, food sources, range conditions, health of the doe, determine if she will continue to develop the fawns or absorb one (usually always the buck fawn) or she may birth both only to abandon one if those items above turn bad. Mother Nature feels the need for more does than bucks and will insure the survival of the doe rather than both or one fawn.
In pure open range conditions, the incidence of having triplets is less than 1%.

Came home at dusk a few nights ago and a doe was out with 4 fawns. We are just north of town in Pagosa Springs and see doe with twins almost daily. We have had so much rain in the past month. Everything is green and animals are everywhere.

jmm said:

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We have had so much rain in the past month. Everything is green and animals are everywhere.

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Hate you

Gunny456 said:

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Whitetails, when fertilized, by nature start with twins. One buck and one doe. Nourishment, food sources, range conditions, health of the doe, determine if she will continue to develop the fawns or absorb one (usually always the buck fawn) or she may birth both only to abandon one if those items above turn bad. Mother Nature feels the need for more does than bucks and will insure the survival of the doe rather than both or one fawn.
In pure open range conditions, the incidence of having triplets is less than 1%.

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Interesting. I always thought whitetails had single fawns as the rule. However, we recently moved to an area crawling in deer and it does seem like we have lots of twins and possibly more than one set of triplets.

Gunny456 said:

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Whitetails, when fertilized, by nature start with twins. One buck and one doe. Nourishment, food sources, range conditions, health of the doe, determine if she will continue to develop the fawns or absorb one (usually always the buck fawn) or she may birth both only to abandon one if those items above turn bad. Mother Nature feels the need for more does than bucks and will insure the survival of the doe rather than both or one fawn.
In pure open range conditions, the incidence of having triplets is less than 1%.

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Hey Gunny,

You do know that the x and y chromosomes come from the buck, right?

So the doe nor "Mother Nature" have no control over the sex of the fawns in utero.

The doe will not "absorb" a buck embryo versus a doe embryo...unless there has been ground breaking research in the past 10 years that I am unaware of.

Incidence of trips is less than 1%? What is the definition of "pure open range conditions"? Non protein supplemented? In Kerr County during a drought? Newton County post-hurricane?

I think I need references for these claims...

Scotty,
Yes I know about a buck and x and y chromosomes. I will also preface my response with a true desire to not be pretentious or vain toward a fellow Aggie and try to humbly give some background. Graduated from TAMU in WFS 1975 and became a biologist and worked in that field for some years in both public and private entities. Studied WFS under Dr. Ingliss, Dr. Teer, Dr. Arnold and Dr. Kroll. Have had the privilege to confer and work with biologist at KerrWMA and many of our state TPWD biologist in my journey. Was blessed with having the opportunity to manage various ranches in the state and work with other fellow WB's within these entities for over 40 years. Also very blessed to have had my own ranch that I have managed for just at 30 years.......yes you can label me as an "old".
During these years I have seen the internal parts of literally hundreds of bucks and does in the accumulation of data that we needed....touching and seeing/examining embryos, determining their sex and number etc. In addition, I have documented and recorded population statistics of whitetails and some species of exotics as it relates to nutrition, range conditions, supplemental feeding, and countless other environmental factors. I have seen does with both buck and doe reproductive parts, and, conversely, I have seen bucks with both doe and buck reproductive parts.
I have worked with vets and other biologist doing ultrasounds on bred does and documenting data on the effects of range conditions and nutrition on the survivability of said embryos.
Myself, other biologist, and wildlife managers have witnessed first hand what a whitetail doe will do in the face of extreme drought, poor nutrition, and poor range conditions as far as aborting, abandoning or terminating the feeding and development of an embryo inside her.
I am stating the above not to brag......I do not classify or remotely think I am an "expert".....far from it. I am stating what we were taught in those years and by what 30 plus years of managing and working with whitetails have taught me and some other fellow biologist and managers.
I will add that I do not condone or support deer breeding or the raising deer in pens or any of the practices of AI, genetic manipulation, forced nutritional manipulation etc. I have no experience in those arenas so I can not speak on what can happen to whitetails and their reproduction traits and effects that can occur therein. Perhaps those deer, under those conditions can all throw tripletts....I have no idea.
I have watched does abandon fawns during poor range conditions or droughts. I have witnessed whether those were mainly buck or doe fawns. I have witnessed pregnant does with knowingly two embryos (affirmed by ultrasound) aborting one or both due to poor nutrition and extreme drought conditions. In the ranches I managed, including my own, I have documented in all the years, two confirmed instances of a doe having trips.
I responded to you because you asked for references of these claims....it is my hope that the above will perhaps lend, at least a small amount of credibility to my statements from someone and others who have spent years in the field touching and learning about whitetails.......and knowing that learning curve will always continue.
The statements I made were not just from me but also from other folks, (including some fellow Aggies) in the field with much greater credentials and expertise than myself.......sadly many no longer on this earth.
The greatest research lab for me has been my own ranch and to be able and touch and work with the animals on a daily basis. One thing has stood out for me working with the deer and exotics on the ranch...if you think you know it all...get ready to have something happen that will surprise you and humble you very quickly. Animals and Mother Nature are amazing and resilient.


I will add that TPWD holds some good classes/workshops from time to time at the KerrWMA. They do a really good job educating MLD holders and interested land owners and other wildlife professionals on many of the above topics.

Hey Gunny, my triplet experience that I referenced above .... was post 2015 drought buster rains that included 2021 rains all the way to like 5.6 total inches of rains in august of 21. So from 2015-21 we had way better than average rainfall. Our area has roughly 7000 acres connected of low fence with several different owners..... hunting pressure is what I would consider minimal in these 7000 ish acres. So these does are seeing some supplemental feeds in several places minimal hunting pressure and had 6 yrs worth of great rain. This season will be vastly different with the lack of rain. We have resorted to supplemental watering for 1st time ever for us. All tanks around here are bone dry. All that to say......Im still watching several sets of twins from this yrs fawn crop, even after a horrible yr.

Good info and interesting. We experienced similar. Could be assumed perhaps that a singular drought year prefaced by multiple wet years does not have as drastic an impact on doe/fawn ratios as multiple back to back dry years.
I am a believer that it's all about the does overall body condition and nutrition available to her during her pregnancy both pre and after birth.
I also have found evidence that temperature has some bearing as well. Our local TPWD biologist has determined that extremely continuous hot days of 100 or more coupled with very hot nights causes the deers internal temperature to rise. Simply put she says the ground temp rises so much and does not cool off at night so the deer body temp never has the chance to cool down. She feels confident this could cause does to abort or abandon fawns as well.
I have experienced that proper protein levels and proper nutrition is a lot more important in the summer than in the dead of winter. Strictly my opinion.

Thanks for your reply Gunny! My experience is that I worked as the head technician at the reproductive sciences lab at the vet school in the early 90s. I was working for Dr Dewey Kraemer and Dr Mark Westhusin on some of the earliest whitetail embryo transfer projects attempted. I also worked at "the Kerr". Our lane produced the first cloned whitetail and later produced the first commercial cloned WT deer. I don't doubt your anecdotal observations. But some of the comments didn't make biological sense.

Thanks for this post

Sounds like interesting and rewarding work. Cool that you got to be a part of that. One summer I got to spend working with Dr. Inglis and a couple of grad students in south Texas on a whitetail project he was doing research on. He was intrigued of the future idea that that could be possible some day.....however he was not supportive of the idea of raising whitetails in pens and breeding them like thoroughbred race horses.
Right after graduation I worked with Rodney Marburger and some other biologist on developing a method of aging embryos by length of the embryo. I never got so tired of cutting into w.t. does uterus's.....but it was cool that you could use that data and back into what month that particular doe got pregnant and reference climate conditions and range conditions at that time. It was rewarding and fun work.