Episode 23 DWP-Bottle Feeding Fawns Start to Finish!

In this episode the Deer Wizard shares insights on bottle feeding fawns, gained from nearly 3 decades in the deer industry.
We review insights after successfully raising hundreds of fawns over the years.

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This podcast is built around real-world experience, collaboration with producers and veterinarians, and nearly three decades of hands-on work across North America. The goal is simple: provide practical insight that helps producers make better decisions for herd health, genetics, and long-term success.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to the Deer Wizard Podcast, conversation shaping the deer industry. I'm your host, Josh Newton, the Deer Wizard. Through interviews, advocacy, and industry news, we deliver field-proven insights to help producers build better herds.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the Deer Wizard Podcast. Today we are talking about bottle feeding fawns. This is not my favorite thing to do, but uh my kids talk me into bottle feeding again this year. I do like having some damn doughs around to add into the breeding program. Fawns are fun to feed. Uh, if you've if you've bottle fed fawns before, you you know that's the case. Uh, we're gonna walk through uh my general process here, how we how we do it. There are a million different ways to skin a cat, so to speak, but there's some good kind of basics to what bottle feeding looks like, and um we'll get into maybe some of the the difficulties, potential difficulties that you you may have. I will try to not go off on on too many different tangents. You know, I I when I think about recording some of these podcasts, um, you know, it they're a lot of them are are health related. And like there is a an almost perfect formula to follow for many of these things. And like in the production animal space, which I I consider, you know, the overwhelming majority of people to be in that space, it's it's difficult, you know. There's this fine line of balance. Uh, and the longer time goes on, uh, I keep reverting back to optimization and you know, the most natural way to do things. But that's neither here nor there. Okay, so um we talked a bit and and it I got some really good response from my my um episode a couple of episodes ago about uh fawn health and identifying you know uh diarrhea issues and and how to tackle doing antibiotic susceptibility tests and things like that. And so I just I know that there are many, many of you that that bottle feed. Um and so we can kind of tie those two together. Uh, we'll get into some of those. So the the font processing we already talked about. I'll cover it briefly. I got the full um kind of protocol for bottle feeding here. Um, if you want to get access to any of the the protocols, uh you can go to the surveyed health management site, you can sign up for that membership program. Uh, I think it's priced at 50, I think it's $50 for the remaining part of this year. And uh it gives you access to discounts on vaccines. And then it also uh has mother-raised and bottle-fed fawn protocols, and then we we have a separate protocol for bottle speeding, bottle feeding specifically with um a little bit more detail about feedings, time frames, things like that. So let's just cover the processing of fawns. Uh, what is processing? Processing is simply just um what we do out in the field with fawns before we we bring them in. So uh ideally fawns need to be with mom, um call it three to six hours prior to even getting your hands on them, right? So mom needs to have these fawns, clean them up, they need to nurse extensively, get that colostrum. I said it before, I'll say it again. The colostrum is where all the magic happens for these fawns, right? They need um as much as they can possibly get. All the prep work that you've done on your dose prior to fawning um pays dividends in that first milk, that colostrum. It's got all these antibodies and strategic proteins and fats and all sorts of good stuff for these fawns. And uh that's all they do when they come out. You know, you've seen them, they they plop out, they stand up, fall over, moms lick, lick, lick, lick, licking, and you know, they just kind of flop in front of her and and they nurse. And you want to encourage that. So just leave leave those guys alone, let them do their thing. A lot of times um everything's just fine with them. Very, very few times you have to to intervene. So make sure that happens. When you when you are evaluating if they got colostrum or not, um generally speaking, again, generally, there's always edge cases with these guys, but generally speaking, you're gonna have a fullish tight belly, right? You can you can feel it on them where you know they've ingested something. Their rear ends are clean, they have good strength and responsiveness. Um body temperatures appropriate, and they're not dehydrated. And so the dehydration is going to um depend a lot on how much they nursed. They should be adequately hydrated when they come out. Um, there are probably some cases where they're not, but you can just do a tent test uh on the the back of their shoulders, or you can do the eye test where you pull down on the eye and it kind of springs back into place. So um that's the that's the general gist to make sure they got that that good colostrum. If you think for some reason they did not, um it's always a good idea at a minimum to have just a bag of powdered colostrum on hand. If you can get goat's milk colostrum um and have that frozen and on hand, just all that out, that's money. So consider doing that prior to fawning, especially if you're gonna have a bunch of fawns. You know, if you're if you're having you know 30, 50, 100, 200 fawns, um, you gotta have some colostrum on hand. So make sure, make sure you got those. Uh physical examination. First thing we do, check gender, lift up the tail, uh, see what's what there, make sure eyes, ears, mouth, umbilical hoofs, all that is is good to go. Check out their general body confirmation. Um, if you picked up, you know, if you've done this quite a few times and you've picked up a bunch of fawns, you just it's just kind of natural, but give them give them a quick once over. They they deserve it. Most likely you won't find any issues, but uh it's it's worthwhile to do. Uh third step DNA sampling, ear tagging, microchipping. Um, we talked about the alcohol spray. Have that 70% alcohol spray. If you're going to stick them, punch them, chip them, etc., just spray it with alcohol first. I I it's it was such a game changer. It took me, I don't know why. Uh maybe it was because I was lazy, I didn't want to do it. I don't know. But spray. You're gonna use the All Flex TSU sample unit for punching ears, spray inside and out of the ear. Use that as a pilot hole for your your ear tags, spray the ear tags down, right? Just just use that alcohol. It's it's dirt cheap, makes everything as sterile as you can make it. And um yeah, just use that. You're gonna put a microchip in the base of the ear, base of the tail, wherever your approved spots are. Spray it. Use that alcohol spray. Always have that with you. It's uh it's such an easy thing to do. Make it a part of your of your protocol. Um, quick note, we again, we're covering old ground, but just leave the triple antibiotic cream at home. Uh, I am I am not a fan. It keeps ever all the tissue soft, and it just in I think it doesn't encourage bacteria growth, but we want that we want that skin where those punches are to turn leathery quick and heal. And the alcohol spray does that. Microchip placement, we just talked about that. Um fawn paste. We we really like using font paste. Uh, we like the headgear fawn arrival. We've used that two years in a row now, uh, after the uh the closing of CNE wildlife products. And um, I I can't I can't say enough good things about the the headgear product line. Just it's uh it's dynamite. So give them half a tube of that. Um just a little trick instead of trying to squeeze you know that half tube uh into their mouth all at once, just do a couple grams at a time. So stick that applicator tube into the back of the tongue, give them you know three grams, let them chew that up, let them swallow that. They're in that mode. It's just part of what they're doing. Uh let them get that down, give them a little bit more and keep doing that until it's gone. Um, make sure they get all that. That's it's a great way to to encourage, you know, proper uh nutrient uptake and um add a good source of uh live you know bacteria into their system as opposed to anything that might be in your your pastures and pens. So to prepare to prepare for um bottle feed, we just want to make sure number one, they had that colostrum intake. Number two is that uh early maternal bonding. So make sure mom's, you know, doing her doing her thing, um taking care of these guys. And we like to leave them the earliest we'll pull them is is 24 hours old. So again, if mom's done her job, there's no reason to grab them before 24 hours, like zero. There's just there's no reason to do that. And if you can wait till they're 36, um, even better. If you if you start getting that that bond is strong between the fawn and the mom. And uh we like to we like to hit that window. They're the fawns are real easy to get on the bottle. Uh after uh, you know, if we bring them in in the morning, you know, eight to twelve hours later, they're they're taking bottles, right? So we just leave them in isolation uh for that time, and they're they're right on you know the first bottle. You get past uh 48 hours in that, you know, two to three day window where they've bonded, and um they they're they're harder to break, right? And we want to try to get them on milk as as soon as we can. So that isolation protocol, if you will, uh is is very helpful. So bring them in. You know, we have separate stalls for each one. We we don't commingle the fawns right away. We want them to bond with us, they want, we want them to associate us with food or or milk and and getting some chow. And you know, you bring them in, put them in a stall, and you let them sit there. Don't touch them, don't talk to them, don't you know, you know, if you want to peek in and check on them, great, but just leave them be for like eight hours and um try them. And so that's just that's been wonderful for us. Um I guess another quick note. Um we just we generally discourage the bottle feeding of buck fawns. And so some of you are yelling at me right now saying, hey, we you know the doe abandoned the fawn and we gotta feed it. Fine. Like I get that. I I have experienced that many times, and in that case, you know, to save the fawn's life, um super, like I think you should pull it. And I would treat those buck fawns very differently than I than I treat the does. They get pretty calm, pretty quick, and um as we all know, they can be very aggressive. So if you're if you're actively bottle feeding buck fawns and you're pulling all your bucks, um I just don't I don't see the purpose in that. Not for for generally for what we do. Later down the line, it's uh it's it it can be very dangerous. So we just discourage bottle feeding bucks. Um try not to do it. Um don't do it if you're you know if you're doing it to keep animals alive because you can't keep animals alive out in your pastures. Uh make the adjustments to your pastures and to your health protocols to fix that problem as opposed to bottle feeding your box. I think that makes sense. So I won't harp on that too much more, but I will say it again don't bottle feed your box. Okay, great. Um first feeding after isolation again, eight to twelve hours. Um we'll just, you know, we'll go in, we'll let the fawn know. Hey, we're here. We usually grunt at it like it's its mom. Um start wiping on the butt, see if we can stimulate a response from the fawn back to us. We get the bottle going in its mouth. Usually they're hungry by then, they take that down. Um they they pick up on that pretty quick, right? And they're all a little different. You I if you've done this any amount of times, you know they all have different personalities. Some of them are your your your buddies and ready to rip bottles after a couple days. Other ones are a constant, you know, hassle and a pain. So just just work with them. You know, if you have animals that need extra attention, you want to try to calm them down, just sit there with them and and hang out. But get that get that bottle into their mouth. Um, it's it's one of the things that's excuse me, can be helpful if you have a really, really stubborn fawn, is uh just putting a little bit of table salt on the on the nipple, um, and or carrow syrup. Those two things have worked well for for breaking stubborn fawns. Uh the other thing is the temperature of the milk. I found that um if you can target that 100 to 105 degree range, um that seems to work really nice. So just consider that. Um, if they don't want to take the bottle right away, like you've you've tried for 30 seconds, a minute, you know, you've taken the nipple out, put it back in, um, just go back to wiping their butt, right? Stimulate them. Just stick stick with it for a little bit and then try it again. The other thing you can do is once the once the nipple's in the mouth, if you're cradling the the fawn's um kind of snout and mouth area, you can just squeeze your uh thumb and index finger top and bottom and kind of stimulate some of that milk to come out. And sometimes moving the nipple back and forth in the mouth um encourages some of that milk to come out, as well as um, you know, the different the nipples tapered. So uh it's kind of some different sizing in the mouth. We really like the Pritchard nipples, we've had great success with those. There are a bunch of Chinese knockoffs, just make sure you get the OG uh Pritchard nipples, they're not cheap, they're like four dollars a piece. You buy the crappy ones on Amazon and you'll know it. They're just junk, you might as well throw them out. I hate those things. Um, so just don't there's I have not found like the original ones uh on Amazon. I think I I get mine from livestock concepts out of Iowa. Um they have them. I usually order them off at eBay, um, I think. So anyway, check that out. Just original Pritchard nipples. So as far as um as far as the the milk options themselves, this is how I rank milk options for uh feeding fawns. Uh human grade raw goat's milk. That'd be my first choice. I've grown the best fawns I've ever grown and had the least amount of issues with human-grade raw goat's milk. Uh human grade pasteurized goat's milk would be my second choice. I think goat's milk is the closest thing to deer milk, mom's milk that we have. I think it's better than replacers. I have been I've been out of the replacer game, if you will, uh, for some time. I'm sure there's some good options out there. Maybe I I do know that like, you know, when you when you like it's critical to make sure that you are mixing as per the manufacturer's recommendation if you're using replacer, and then adjusting as you see kind of what the fawn's uh reactions are to that. And just remember, like, this is a this is a little side note, but like uh just remember that these things take time when you make adjustments. So, you know, what my phone consistently rings during fawning season, and you know, it's always it's always problems, like how do I fix this? What's going on with this? And and I enjoy um sharing some of my insights. But just remember when you're doing adjustments or treatment protocols or whatever those kind of actions are with your fawns, this it stuff takes time. And and if you're in the grind of bottle feeding, a week is a month and a month is a year. Uh and I because this is we're we're all knee deep in in the fawning season right now. Uh, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You know, somebody'd be like, Oh yeah, I talked to you know four days ago, and you're like, four days? That would just seem like weeks ago, right? Uh it's because you're just on this on this grind journey where you're just working away and uh it's just like dear, dear, dear all the time. So um just give these things a little bit of time. You know, if you're if you're treating a sick fawn and you're using an antibiotic, like give it you know 48 hours to see if there's any improvement or changes. Uh same thing if you're adjusting uh replacer in your your milk, right? If it's calling for like a two to one mix and you know you you wanna thin it out a little bit and go to uh you know 1.75 to 1 or something like that, uh ratio powder to water, um, you gotta give that a little bit of time. Like the the fawn system has to adjust. So um back to the milk options. Number three, uh red cap vitamin D cow's milk and a can of evaporated goat's milk. That seems to be consistent, easy. Uh, I will say this, and I know there's a a ton of fans of the the quote unquote red cap protocol. Um excuse me, the the um sorry, I need to get a little sip of coffee here. It is the afternoon. That's okay. Coffee is good any time of day. Um the goat's milk is uh far easier for a fawn to digest. And so um the red cap milk or cow cow's milk generally, just it sits in the belly a little bit longer. It's harder for them to kind of break down those fats and proteins. Um but I do like it better than uh the powdered replacer. So um You gotta kind of weigh your options again. You know, uh a can of evaporated goat's milk is uh four dollars and fifty-eight cents as of today, and a gallon of red cap is anywhere between four and five bucks, right? So, you know, all in mixed price, call it eight fifty ish. Well, that's not that's not too terrible, but if you can score some goat's milk for around the same price, and the only difference is the travel and the storage, I think the goat's milk is uh is an easy win for you. That's just my opinion. You have somebody that has extra goat's milk and it's it's good, you know, tested uh goat's milk, and you can get it in I really like the half gallons because they stack in a freezer and you can get it. Go buy a bunch of it, freeze it, take it out, you can thaw it, and uh you it'll pay dividends. The the funds just they do so good on it. So um the only the only other thing that I really that I'm kind of a stalwart on at this point is uh adding a scoop of the fawn arrival powder from Headgear to every bottle. That stuff, if and and and I've gotten like had a couple people ask me about it this year, and you know, the one guy responded back, it's so funny because we as deer farmers, like you know, when we're talking to people, like deer talk is truly a unique language, right? And he's like, This is the best year we've ever had for poop, and you're just like, Oh man, that's funny. Um but every deer farmer gets it, right? And so, you know, he's been using the fawn arrival powder, and he's just having tremendous success with it. So we do a scoop of that in every every bottle. If somebody gets a little loose, we're doing some kind of antibiotic treatment or something like that, we're just up in the scoops. Um, but that stuff is just like you, you won't you won't catch me bottle feeding fawns without a scoop of that stuff in. It's basically a a gram of like the fawn arrival paste in every bottle. So if you're doing four times a day, they're getting four grams of that. So it's a nice uh good bacteria load, amongst other things. Uh the encrypt product in there is great for um the you know scours issues. So it's just something we have on hand. Um if you want to get some of that, check out PBS Animal Health. I I I I don't want to sound like I'm harping on it. Like I just can't I can't recommend it enough. It's it's awesome stuff. So if you're having issues and somebody's like, oh, get some Greek yogurt or get some pumpkin, those are all fine too. Um this stuff's like just another level from that. So if you want to add some consistency to the stool and to your bottle feeding program, check out Headgears Fawn Arrival Powder at BBS. Um, we like using eight-ounce, excuse me, 10-ounce glass bottles for the first few weeks. Uh, they just glass sterilizes really nice. The plastic's fine. Like if you got plastic bottles, use the plastic bottles. But, you know, if you want a cold uh a-treat ginger ale or a Canada dry ginger ale, go get yourself a six-pack of the soda, enjoy the soda, and then you got some good uh bottles for bottle feeding. Those Pritchard Nimples screw right on there. We really like those. And then, you know, as they exceed the the 10-ounce uh mark as far as their drinking goes, you can go ahead and and upgrade to you know 16-ounce bottles or whatever you're using. So when we when we start ours, um I like starting them at four times a day. I haven't done I haven't done, at least not for a while. I I may have done, I think we were feeding some replacer quite a while ago, and uh I was doing like what they recommended six or seven times a day, and just like two ounces or something like that. And you're kind of married to the bottle barn then, right? And it just wasn't it wasn't for me because I had other stuff to do. So the the natural milks, um four times a day seems like it's a it's a good fit for my schedule. So, you know, I'll go start, I'll I'll bottle feed at call it 7:30, 8 o'clock, I'll bottle feed again at call it somewhere between 12 and 1, and then again at between five and six, and then sometime after 11 o'clock at night. That kind of fits my schedule. Uh, and you can tweak those around. The goal is just to distribute the four feedings throughout the day um kind of evenly as possible within your your waking hours. So those fonts do really good on it. Um there's been some there's been some debate about dropping down or even starting them at three times a day. I haven't had great luck with that early on, but um probably, you know, most fawns, right? Most fawns. There's so much there's so much nuance in this. You know, you have a fawn that was born and it was three pounds, it's just gonna require more work. You have a fawn that was born that was eight pounds, that thing's hardy and robust, and they usually thrive more. So, generally speaking, you can probably, you know, three weeks get them off that um four times a day, right down to three. Certainly a nice, nicer bit for your schedule. Uh, for me, we don't bottle feed a lot of fawns. Um, I think we got six or eight going. And I I just, you know, if we have one that was born later or, you know, a problem candidate that had to come in to get fixed, or whatever that is. And it's on four times a day. I'm like, well, I'm here, I might as well just feed the other ones. Um, and as summer drags on, and you know, you're you've already been ball-to-feeding for a month, you don't really want to start new fawns. I suspect you're all grinning along with me because you know, you get a whole big group down to three times a day, and you're like, oh, that was nice. And then, you know, there's four out of let's just say you're doing 20, and you got 16 that are, you know, doing three times a day, and there's four there you gotta do four times a day. It's just like, oh my gosh, come on, get on the get on the schedule. So you can you can make those adjustments as you kind of assess the health of of the fawns. Um so yeah, that's that's the general gist of it. We go, we go uh we start them at four times a day and try to get them down to three, you know, after at least a few weeks. So, as far as uh milk heating procedures, there is so many different ways to heat up the milk. I'll say this: don't use a microwave, don't take milk and heat it up directly in a microwave and then feed it. Um those microwaves just zap any of the nutrients that are that are left there after uh pasteurization. The target feeding temp for me is 100 to 105. If I can be at 104, it just depends how particular you want to get. Um, that's where we like to be. And that provides consistency. I I really think fawn feeding is about consistency. So 100 to 104. We do ours in a water bath. So I bought one of those, you know, like garden plastic garden totes. It's got like for your tools to carry out in the garden, you know, it's yay big, whatever that is, 16, uh, 16 inches long, maybe 14 wide with two channels and the handle in the middle. And we got our water heater in our fawn barn just cranked up. And I drop those glass bottles right in there with their milk, turn that water on as hot as it'll get, and we're off to the races. I just have a little, you know, thermometer that I set down in, and I just wait for it to get up to somewhere between 100 and 104. I put my scoop of the fawn arrival powder in and I go feed. And that's that's what works good for me. You can, you know, I've seen seen people with uh, you know, special dish, you know, bottle heaters, right? It's like a huge water bath. Uh people use crock pots. Some people take a, you know, depending on how many fawns you're doing, take the gallon of milk out, pour it into a pot, put that pot on, you know, an oven stovetop range, heat it up to you know their desired temperature, 100, 104. There's a tons of different ways to do it. Just just don't microwave it. That's all. Um we talked about uh the excuse me, the fawn arrival, powder, um it's essential, uh feeding schedule. Every fawn is different. I'm just I have this long protocol and notes up in front of me if you see me looking down at my my computer here. Um every fawn is different. Milk's milk consumption varies based on birth weight, growth rate, genetics, milk source, etc. So for us, an average size fawn is about six to eight pounds. Again, generalizing, but six to eight pounds is pretty standard. Those are the fawns that you go out, you pick them up, and you're like, whoo, that's a nice solid fawn, right? They're they're just they're they're they feel hardy. Um so the first bottle that we mix up for those size fonts is always four ounces. And we don't put any of the fawn arrival powder in because we don't know if they're gonna drink it. And I don't like putting warm milk back into the jug, etc. So typically they take that first bottle, but not always. So that's how we do it. And then the next feeding um we'll give them right around that four-ounce mark again, and we will start adding our our fawn arrival powder. After like the first uh two feedings, and we you know we check stool consistency to see if everything's good and normal, uh, we'll immediately start bumping them right up to you know five or six ounces of feeding. Uh, we have a chart here. This is again, this is this is very general, and and all you can adjust these however you want, but basically uh off of a 10 to 12 week schedule, um this is where they're at. So the first couple weeks, first few weeks, uh four times a day, we get them down to three times a day for you know week four through six-ish. Um get them down to uh two times a day for call it two or three weeks, and then one time a day for you know, like the last two weeks. And it really honestly depends on how they're doing the fawns generally, as a group, because we we group feed and um our schedules throughout the summer, right? So everybody has different schedules, and you know, the ounces just kind of gradually increase till they peak, and then we just start tapering them down. So, like right now we have fawns that are uh three weeks old. And so sometimes I like skip a night feeding, so they technically get like three times a day, or I'll skip a midday feeding and do the night feeding. Um, kind of throw one of those in, or sometimes I'm just whooped at night and like I can't get over there, whatever that looks like, right? Um but they are they are actively consuming vegetation, so they got nice clover and orchard grass, and um it will loosen up their stools. So like we we keep them inside till they're comfortable with us eating, uh comfortable with us eating, yeah. Till till they are comfortable with us feeding them and they're coming up and they're trying to jump out of their stalls, and we let them outside. If they act a fool, they come back into the penalty box, right? Because I I'm not I don't got time to chase them around the the outdoor corral. The outdoor corral is call it 40 by 80 feet, okay? Um but they are like when you let them out, they number one, they gorge on dirt roots, whatever they're chewing on out there, and they're just they're picking at all these these green buds, right? And eating clover flowers and tips off the ryegrass and the seed heads and whatever else is out there. But they are hammering that stuff, they love that stuff, like they love, love, love it. And um that transition from all milk to green stuff, right? Is just it's rapid, takes like a week or two, and they don't stop consuming. So it's important just to monitor stools, make sure they're not picking up any bugs or or you know, getting too out of hand with loosey goosies. And you know, we start introducing some some hard feed. We we currently are just using our um our adult feed that's worked for us. There's lots of different starter feeds and um you know different options for you, whatever works for you. It's it's fine. We like just walking over to our you know, our our feed station there and grabbing a little bit out of there and and putting it in. Um, they start picking at that stuff quick, right? You see a little, you know, 15-pound fawn and it's cracking corn or soybeans or whatever, it's munch on. It's pretty cool. Um, but they they that that adjustment is their is their development process. And that rumen takes a little bit of time to develop, right? It's it's um it's it's non-existent. It's not non-existent. What's what's a better term? It uh it's not functional, right? It's not developed when they're first born. And it takes, you know, it takes it really starts coming into play, you know, probably around that four-week mark. And right in that four to six-week mark, you see that you know, those fawns are getting a lot more active on green stuff if they're on pasture or feed if they're on feed. And you every once in a while you go out and you'll catch them, they'll be laying there, and like you'll see them, they'll chew their cud. And like that's great. We we want to encourage good rumen um production and development because that's their main job. Like they're they're ruminants, they they eat a bunch, it you know, sits in that vat and churns away, and the microbes and the bacteria in there are doing their thing, and that's that's how they're gonna get their food. So the milk over time becomes less and less important, and the quality of their forages and stuff, uh, and that rumen development is more important. So just keep that in mind, um, you know, as you're as you're doing stuff. So um generally speaking, that's that's pretty much it, right? So try to keep stuff clean. Um don't panic if you know you transition them from the barn out into the pasture, uh, you know, at a whatever, a couple weeks old, whenever they're chill. And you know, that that stool gets just a little out of whack. It's just from them picking on stuff, right? So um it doesn't happen to all of them, but some of them are a little more prone to it. You may have some bacteria issues out there, but uh it's super cool to watch them grow. Hopefully, this was helpful for for everyone. I'm not gonna be labor. There's there's not too much more here. Um just avoid. I guess here's some things to avoid, just generally. Um abrupt changes to milk. Don't be changing brands of your replacer. I like using the same, you know, brand of vitamin D cow's milk. Uh, if you've ever bought um a couple different store grocery ones or a local uh dairy, etc., and you've tasted them, they taste different. I suspect the fans can taste that too. They probably have a little bit different um uh contents of of what's in there as far as you know fat levels, protein levels. I don't know. I'm not a not a dairy expert, but um just just pick a brand stick with it. Make sure your feeding times are are consistent, right? They may not be perfectly spaced out at 6 a.m. noon, 6 p.m. midnight. It's fine, right? But just keep it consistent. Try not to like overfeed them. I would not feed them cold, cold milk. Um, I've heard some people doing it, they don't care. Whatever. Um you can you can you can do your thing. Uh, I just I like hitting 100 degrees in my milk. Um, if you are mixing, make sure you're mixing it again as per the manufacturer's recommendations or some version thereof, but you know, the powder's diluted if you're using replacer, but just keep things consistent. And then work on your sanitation, keep things clean. Those fawns they bury their noses and mouths in just about everything. Try to keep things nice for them. Um, have some good pastures, bring them some cut leaves, go pick some clover if you don't have clover out in your pens, alfalfa, whatever. Just be mindful that stuff's really rich on their fresh new little bellies, and uh it can cause some some diarrhea issues. And uh enjoy, right? Keep that routine going, make small adjustments here and there as you need, let your eyes do the work, and uh enjoy your summer. And with that, stay tuned for another episode of the Deer Wizard Podcast.