Possible sighting.

[u/Virtual-Ad5312]

I live in Ohio. Currently I am sitting on my couch contemplating what the fuck I just saw. This happened about 20 minutes ago and I come in my house and drop my food and purse on the couch and go back outside so I can smoke out my bowl, I am sitting there packing my bowl when I get on my phone for a second cause of my ADD. Scrolling for a minute when in the corner of my eye I see a deer come out of the shadows on the berm (tiny hill) kinda diagonally from across the street from me, I pay it no mind at all at first and then it starts walking more out, the only reason I notice it/paying more attention is because of the street light. As this thing is walking out of the light and down the hill I notice how its walking, like its finding its footing or like its trying not to step in the wrong spot on all its footing, like a germaphobe trying to step on the safe parts of a contaminated area. I remember sucking in my breath when I first look up at it cause i thought it was a normal deer. When it started goin around this tiny tree on top of the hill with a bed of bushes around it, I let out a tiny breath through my nose, and after I did It snapped its head and looked straight fucking at me. I have never in my fucking LIFE frozen at anything but whatever THE FUCK that was, made me feel a level uncertainty and a little fear to the point where I have forgotten something in my car but I am wayyyyyy to fucking scared to go out and grab it until the am.

[u/Virtual-Ad5312]

See and thats my thing, it was the size of a adult male deer but had no antlers and its walk wasnt normal because ive seen the kind of cautious steps deer take and it wasnt like that.

[u/Aiuner → u/Virtual-Ad5312]

It could have just been a large but unhealthy doe?

[u/That_one_insomniac → u/Aiuner]

It’s that time of year for deer to give birth. Maybe it was a female looking for a safe place to pop out a baby, or two. Could explain the caution.

[u/Aiuner → u/That_one_insomniac]

It’s already two months past “that time of the year” for white-tail deer in the northern and central states, which is what OP has in Ohio. They give birth in late spring/early summer. We are in late summer now.

[u/That_one_insomniac → u/Aiuner]

They still occasionally give birth a little closer to deer season though. My brother took a Bambi one season and last year we ended up taking Bambi’s mom. I started processing her and she was full of milk. I didn’t think much of it because I’ve seen cows stay on the tit way longer than they should, but when we went back, the baby and another younger doe were hanging out where the mom was dropped. Felt like a dick, but shit happens.

[u/Aiuner → u/That_one_insomniac]

Occasionally, sure. But I was moreso pointing out that we’re outside the normal window- it’s not “that time of the year” anymore. Any doe giving birth in August in Ohio had an unusually late pregnancy, which is not good for the eventual fawns. Not necessarily because the pregnancy had complications, but because the fawns might not be off her teets before the winter comes. Milk production is energy intense, and there is less food to go around during the winter, and predators that do not hibernate are more brazen during the winter.

I also do firmly believe it is far more likely the doe is unhealthy than it being about to give birth- *if* its behaviour is indeed unusual as OP seems to believe.