A one-day-old deer managed to get trapped in a rabbit hole overnight but was saved by a farmer who spotted its distressed mother nearby.
Pete Wesley and his wife Jane, 55, were doing their morning rounds in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, when they spotted the mother deer and then realised her fawn had fallen into the burrow.
Footage shows the 53-year-old reaching into the hole in the grass to grab the terrified little deer, which calls out in distress.
After a minute of struggling, Mr Wesley managed to haul the baby animal out of the hole by its neck and reunited it with its mother, where it fed for half an hour.
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Farmer Pete Wesley, pictured, spotted the young fawn stuck in a rabbit hole in Sleaford, Lincolnshire
The fawn’s mother stood away from Mr Wesley, carefully monitoring the ongoing situation
Mr Wesley said the tiny deer ‘wouldn’t have been able to get itself out of the hole on its own, it was well stuck.
‘It couldn’t have stood up in the hole so its only way out was how I pulled it out, which it wouldn’t have been able to do under its own strength, even if the mum had tried to help.
‘I did have to be a little firm with the calf but I didn’t want it to shuffle further down the hole.
‘The mum had just given birth the day before in that area so we went to check they were both ok. As we got there we noticed the hole and found it pretty quickly.
‘Jane spotted the mum hanging around and we went over to check out what was happening. The mum was desperate, running all around the place.
‘Fortunately she is one of the docile ones and she didn’t go to attack me. They don’t mean you any harm but they will try and fight you back away from their calf.
‘The calf would have been in the hole overnight at least. Its mum was clearly full of milk when we got there so it hadn’t fed for a good while.’
The hole had been created by rabbits and a fox but been battered by bad weather over the winter and then overgrown, leaving the hidden pit for the deer to fall into.
Mr Wesley said: ‘We’ve filled in that hole and others around the farm that we’ve seen to hopefully stop it happening again.
After a bit of coaxing, the fawn was freed seemingly unharmed and was reunited with its mother
Mr Wesley, pictured with his wife, Jane, said she was the the person who spotted the deer
‘This is the first time I’ve ever had to rescue an animal from a rabbit hole and we’ve been farming deer since 1994.
‘As soon as it was out, the mum came over and they started feeding straight away. We watched for about 30 minutes as it was drinking, it must have been starving.
‘I was really pleased we managed to rescue the fawn. If Jane hadn’t spotted it when she did, I wouldn’t have had the chance to get it out and it wouldn’t have been able to survive.
‘We do a daily sweep of the farm every morning, especially when the deer are calving to make sure everything is alright.
‘It’s our responsibility to keep the animals safe and looked after but it’s still pleasing to have helped out here.’