I remember my research partner's eyes getting wide.

Our major professor was explaining how he was was going to be bottle feeding mule deer fawns. And to me as well, since I would be the occasional weekend relief.

Not a lot to it, actually. Not much different than for human babies. We used big glass soda bottles, which you heated in boiling water, just like for humans. Filled with whole cow's milk. Checking the temperature against your wrist. The only differences, besides the volume, were adding a little condensed milk and colostrum, the antibody-rich milk from a cow's first few days of nursing.

No, not much there to alarm my partner.

What scared him was what came after the feeding.

You see, deer fawns don't defecate on their own. Just dropping out pellets wherever you happen to be might be a poor way to survive, leaving little scent posts out for any predator.

Nope, deer fawns only poop when mom tells them to.

She tells them, as our prof explained, by licking their little asses. The warm, wet massage under their tail was all they needed to get their bowels moving and emptied.

And this was an important step, too. No lick, no poop. And, boom, you've got a constipated fawn. And if you don't do something about, and soon, a dead fawn.

It was this discussion about licking fawn butts that got his eyes opening in fear.

Relief, and laughter, came soon after, as our instructor explained we would be using warm, wet paper towels to wipe the little cervid bottoms.

Not tongues.

This came to my mind as I watched this doe yesterday, having obviously just finished nursing her young one, performing the butt-licking - pooping ritual.

What I hadn't expected was to learn mule deer does apparently feel the same way about the necessary task as my partner...