So I am standing at my kids baseball practice tonight in Dripping Springs talking to another Dad. I happen to glance behind me and to my surprise a deer is walking through the gate straight towards us. I tell him to turn around to get a load of this. The deer walks straight towards us and comes right up to me and starts sniffing me. This is strange enough, but the deer is a spike still in velvet and is definitely a young deer. There are a couple of other Dads out there with us and it does the same to them. It then works it way around the fence and walks to third base. Kids are kind of freaked out as the deer goes to 2nd and then to first. Practice is now at a stand still. It works its way back around the fence towards us and heads to the building where BP is happening. I finish the conversation after 15 mins and I end up going to the building to watch some cage work and the deer is hanging out up there. It finds some discarded bubble gum on the ground and eats it. It mills around a bit longer and makes it way through the parking lot and ends up chewing on some paper some one left on the ground. It finally moves off after about another 10 mins. I will upload pics when I get a chance. Anyone have a clue why this deer would act like this or why it would still be in velvet this time of year?

Very disturbing that he ran the bases backwards while in Velvet on his way to chew gum. My guess is he wandered into a bar earlier and stayed a little too long.

You outta start EDCin holy water...

ya sure it wasnt a doe ? Some do have antlers & they don't loose them, heard some stay velvet.
Sounds like pen raised . Cool story. Thanks for sharing .

Buck fawn?

Take some corn, he might be somebody in the neighborhood's pet.

A whitetail buck that stays in velvet year around is called a cactus buck. He is sterile either by birth or injury. His antlers will always grow and will never harden or shed. I got a pic of one on my ranch this past November and spoke to my biologist about it. Maybe he was a captured buck and the breeders decided to release him since he is sterile. I will try to post a pic of the one i have on my ranch

Thats him above. I have better pics of him on my ipad at home—these are only ones I have on my phone which are blurry from being a screen shot. You can see how they get the name cactus. The biologist said they are prone to injury and break them off often.

I was thinking about this----If it were me I'd report the unusual activity to the local game warden. I just saw on an episode of Lone Star Law where a previously captive buck attacked a father and his boy in their own front yard. The father ended up killing the buck and then called the GW to report it. Then the biologist came out and took samples to check for CWD. You never know with the recent reports of CWD here lately.

just my 2 cents.

Sounds like a buck fawn that was raised by someone in the area.

Definitely a deer used to people and turned a little on the pet side. My wife and I stayed in a B&B in the hill country a year or so ago, and the place had resident "wild" deer that would almost eat out of your hand in the back. We would sit and drink wine while watching the deer up close, very close. I've seen it at other places like this also.

yep, they get used to people when there isn't any threat ... Lots of places around the Austin area are literally overrun by the deer and some are that gentle. I suspect the antlers still being in velvet is like others have stated, sterile buck.

Could be just a Rangers fan, they don't know how to run the bases either....

Could it be a pet that some one thought " lets cut him so he does not wonder in the rut" this would explain the antlers and the disposition around people.

slippinaround cactus buck.

transgender

Below is the deer I was talking about.

Definitely used to being around people. There are a lot of deer in my area like this. They live in neighborhoods and some people hand feed them. Lake just north of me (Canyon Lake) has a bunch around it as well. I have had to almost bump deer with the brush guard on my truck to get them out of an empty parking spot at the boat ramp.