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Deer running in circles?!?

I was sitting in my tree stand yesterday up by Blair and I saw a small doe walking toward me...then a whole group of does was walking about 75 yards from me and 1 of them starting running at almost full speed in a big circle about the size of a track. The other deer did not seem to be effected at all and they didnt seem spooked. This deer ran in circles for a probably 3-4 minutes and then stopped. Weirdiest thing ive every seen and I was wondering if anyone else has seen something like it or knows why the deer would have been doing that. Disease? Playing? Totally confused please comment if you can shed some light on the situation.

I have witnessed that be behavior many times myself and believe it is playing or feeling frisky.

I have witnessed that be behavior many times myself and believe it is playing or feeling frisky.

Sometimes when the bugs find them they will get mad and just take off running to get away from them also.

Yes, especially if your small doe is actually a fawn...ive seen fawns screw around lots of times.

It was a fawn...I thought it might just be playing around but I guess I've just never seen it before. Thanks for the comments

Yes, I have seen deer running in circles before and I think this is related to a disease called CWD that is not spread among humans.

Incidents of deer walking in repeated small circles is usually attributed to meningeal brain worm. Whitetails are the host, but mule deer are especially impacted by it. In this case though, it sounds like a fawn jacking around.

Many articles blame deer running in circles phenomenon on chronic wasting disease. This however is not the main cause of this behavior in my locale. We live in south central Illinois and we observe this behavior in our hayfields in January and February quite often actually. The same small groups if does will exhibit this behavior one a week or so right before dark or early in the morning. These same deer are not sick and resume feeding and normal healthy behaviors immediately afterwards. They appear on video and photos and we identify them by physical characteristics. The same deer thrive throughout their lives and will without warn suddenly sprint around and play. I get bored if every writer explaining the behavior by blaming it on chronic wasting disease. We have never had a single case of CWD reported or recorded by our conservation team in our county or any county closer than 300 miles away in Cook county in northern Illinois where people began capturing deer in the 1980’s and beyond in order to breed and interbreed deer for larger genetic racks. These captive animals soon exhibited CWD due to the captive environment.

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