what are the odds of this?

[deernut]

Quick Follow-up:

 

I searched a few publications I have and found the following:

John Russo in his book on the Kaibab says "twins are very common and occasionally triplets are seen."

 

In "The Whitetailed deer in WI" they say that does can have 1, 2, or 3 and that quadruplets have not been reported in WI but they have elsewhere and they cite another general wildlife textbook (no specifics). Of 10 does found in WI dead (2-yrs-old) they reported 7 had single fawns, 2 with twins, and 1 with triplets. Another sample of 33 showed that 13 had singles, 19 had twins, and 1 had triplets (3%).

 

A book called "Deer in Maine" reported on a sample of 65 pregnant does in which 74% had twins, 21% had singles, and 5% had triplets.

 

in "The Oak Creek mule deer herd in Utah" they mention 2 cases they know of (in MT & CO) where a doe had quadruplets, but say that in 1,169 pregnant mule deer does they examined, none had more than 3 young. They observed a doe with 4 fawns following her but felt it was more probable that she had adopted other fawns, even though they say that is extremely rare until after nursing is over. They examined the reproductive tracts of 100 breeding-age mule deer does and found that 12% had no fawns, 35% had singles, 51% had twins, and 1.2% had triplets. Observing deer in late summer (3 months after fawning) they estimated that 0.3% of does had triplets (at least one died by then).

 

So the up-shot is this is very rare. The triplet data for WI & ME (3-5%) are much higher than what we would have in our lower-nutrition Southwest habitat. Adoption of other fawns is a possibilty, but maybe even less common than a doe actually having 3 fawns.

 

JIM

[azshtr]

Might be more common in deer near nuclear power plants.

[Mangum]

 

Great info. Deernut.

[AllBoutHuntn]

Was up in 24A this past weekend and got to see my first set of triplets!

[CouesWhitetail]

Thanks so much for the info Jim!

 

And Allbouthuntn, get some pics of those triplets if you see them again. That's cool! I didn't get a photo of the triplets I saw many years ago.

 

Amanda

 

[257wby]

Just saw a set of three in unit 7 this past weekend.

 

Mike

[CouesWhitetail]

here is the photo of triplets that Josh got a few years ago.

 

 

 

 

 

Amanda

 

[Kaffer62]

Thats a cool picture... it would be pretty cool to see that one day.

[Coues Archer]

Wow i have never seen that. But i hope i get to experience that one day.