Something to fawn over: Twin deer born in La Crescent yard

LA CRESCENT, Minn. (WKBT) — Tom Fuchsel had gone home from his insurance agency for a late lunch about midafternoon Thursday when he noticed a couple of other animals having their first breakfast.
In his yard, two newborn fawns were nursing from their mom “wobbly, like they just were born,” said Fuchsel, who said deer often come down from the hills behind the home on La Crescent’s North Side where he and his wife, Mary Ellen, have lived since 1981.
Fuchsel, who said he wasn’t able to get a photo of the twins suckling, suggested in an interview that their mom had a practical reason for giving birth in their yard.
“You can hear coyotes howl at night, probably at dinner time when they’ve found a dead animal,” he said. “I’m sure that’s why.’
The Fuchsels’ yard has a lot of foliage, which provides not only something to nibble on but also good cover from predators, he said.
“The lilacs kinda hide the young ones,” Fuchsel said.
“The mother will leave the fawns in shrubbery around the house to hide and come back at night to feed them,” he said. “Baby deer also don’t have a scent until they get older, which makes it harder for predators to find them.”
It’s common for the couple to see four or five deer in the valley adjoining their property, he said.
“I just say hi, how’s it going, and they look up and then go back to eating,” he said. “There’s no fear here.”
The 69-year-old Fuchsel, one of 10 children — seven boys and three girls — who grew up on a farm, confesses that, at one time, he hunted these fawns’ ancestors with some success.
But Mary Ellen is a Chicago child “who never cared for venison,” he said, so he eventually quit hunting.
“There’s no danger from me any more,” although he still partakes in card parties after hunts “and take their money,” he said, chuckling.

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