The five fawns in Michelle Wiley’s garage are almost impossible not to pet, especially when they bleat.

Most of them are newborns about the size of a housecat, with a smattering of white freckles. They are all eyes and legs, hyper-alert faces balanced on stilt-like spindles, managing to look both graceful and precarious at the same time — heart-stoppingly vulnerable. Wiley, 52, speaks to them in sing-song baby talk, asking if they are hungry. They flick their white tails. They are always hungry, always beguiling, and she stands ready with a bottle with special formula, three times a day.

“I hope you don’t mind poop,” she says matter-of-factly, inserting a bottle in a fawn’s mouth and holding a wet wipe at the base of its tail. “I go through wipes and pee-pads like nobody’s business.” Wildlife rehabilitation is hard, dirty, costly work, but it yields soul-satisfying rewards, she says. With the blessing of the Department of Natural Resources, Wiley, the “Deer Lady of North Georgia,” has been rescuing and “rehabbing” fawns with missing mothers for six years. She currently has 11 at her farm in Cleveland, with the expectation of topping out at 15.

They come to her from a variety of sources. Most fawns are found on the roadside, beside a dead mother. Some are found crying in the woods. One turned up in a flower bed in a subdivision. As they get bigger, they’ll move to an enclosed thicket in her cow pasture. And in October, DNR agents will round them up and release them in designated wildlife management areas.

Last summer, she took in 42. “That was too much — my head was constantly spinning, and I almost got a divorce,” she says with a laugh.

Because they’ll eventually be released into the wild, Wiley handles the fawns as little as possible so they don’t become too comfortable with humans. “I don’t cuddle them,” she says. “They’re not pets. I try not to give them names. But I can’t help noticing that they have individual personalities. They may look the same at first glance, but they’re all different in little ways you start to notice.”

A third-generation farmer who is in her 25th year of teaching high school, Wiley established the nonprofit Wildlife Tails Inc. in March, but she pays for most of the supplies and veterinary care out of her own pocket. Friends and vet techs help out with the scut work, but her operation is largely a one-woman passion project.

“These are very expensive babies,” she says, estimating that each fawn costs at least $500 to raise. Some of her creatures have had hip surgery, amputations and acupuncture. One deer was rehabbed twice, after catching an arrow in its leg.

ExploreWild Georgia: Mother deer with fawns makes a pretty scene

Credit: Tom Johnson for the AJC

Credit: Tom Johnson for the AJC

Wiley, who sports a practical pixie haircut and the kind of patience long honed in a classroom, found her calling early. She grew up a tomboy in Murrayville, with frequent trips to her grandparents’ farm in Suches, where she found a book that captivated her when she was only 10 years old: “The World of the White-Tailed Deer” by Leonard Lee Rue. “I just fell in love with deer, right then, on the spot.” She still has the worn volume. Her grandfather was an artist who exhorted her to paint, and what was her favorite subject? That certain ungulate. “I would put my horse on a deer trail and be gone for hours, looking for wildlife.”

Wiley earned degrees in animal science, poultry science and science education. “I thought, What can I do to share my love of nature?” She stumbled into wildlife rehabilitation when she spied a dead skunk in the road, with three babies’ heads the size of thumbs sticking out. “I didn’t have a clue what to do with them, but I knew they needed help,” she says. In return, they sprayed her dog, but she was hooked when she heard the skunks purr like a cat.

“Then things just started showing up,” she says. “Word spread that I took in animals. An injured woodpecker. A vulture. A turtle. It’s illegal, to rehab wildlife without a permit, but I did it anyway.” Ten years ago, she obtained a permit for small mammals, and now she is one of 144 rehabbers on the rolls.

“I wish we had a whole bunch of Michelles scattered all over the state — there’s a real need for wildlife rehabbers who know what they’re doing,” says DNR agent David Reed.

Once a year, the agency inspects her facilities. In addition to her herd of deer, Wiley has cattle, horses, goats, chickens, bees, dogs and cats. Her 30-acre farm has an idyllic, Disney vibe — it’s easy to imagine cartoon bluebirds alighting on her shoulders.

Not everyone shares her St. Francis of Assisi sensibility, she notes. “I know someone who fed a deer human breast milk,” Wiley says. “I know someone who slept in the bed with a fawn. I’ve known people to try to sell fawns for drug money. I have seen it all when it comes to deer. People have some real issues coexisting with them.”

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Credit: Tom Johnson

In fact, most fawns come to her through well-intentioned human error. Does tend to leave their offspring alone when they forage; the fawn stays still in one place to conserve energy and build body mass. “People typically find a baby and think it’s abandoned when most of the time, they aren’t,” she says. “I try to educate people to encourage them to return the deer to where they found it and wait around to see if its mother will return. Ninety percent of the time, the mother does return, but if the baby has been away for a while, that chance diminishes.”

Sometimes it’s clear that the fawn is orphaned, though, having lost its mother to a car collision or a hunter. Occasionally a deer arrives at the Wiley farm with puncture marks that indicate an owl or hawk has caught it and dropped it. One fawn had to have its eye removed where a talon had perforated it, but it recovered well, Wiley says. In that sense, deer are not quite as fragile as they look. “I’ve seen deer survive an arrow through the neck. They’re very resilient in some ways.”

If it is clear that the mother is out of the picture, Wiley swings into action. “Does keep their babies licked extremely clean, so the first thing I look for is curled ears and a dry nose, which suggests dehydration, she says. “If a baby has been mauled by dogs and has maggots in a wound, it’s probably too late to save it. But I try to give every one of them a fighting chance.”

Deer can be sensitive. Too much stress can cause a condition called Capture Myopathy, a fight-or-flight response in which the animal’s body shuts down, so trips to the veterinarian can be a hair-trigger production.

“We have to be very careful when assessing fawns,” says Dr. Lara Chambers of Petcare Animal Hospital, a clinic in Flowery Branch that works with Wiley. “If they’re considered releasable, we keep as few hands on them as possible because we don’t want them getting too accustomed to humans. We keep them in an isolated, dimly lit room, away from the kennels with barking dogs, and away from any high-pitched conversation. It’s important to have calm mannerisms around them.”

Wiley, who grew up soothing skittish horses, radiates reassurance as she moves from fawn to fawn with her bottles, close but at a certain remove, beaming adoration at them with her eyes. It’s a delicate dance, caring for them but keeping them wild.

“To see these deer grow and not only survive but thrive under her care because of the time, energy and resources she invests is one of the most gratifying aspects of my job,” Chambers says.

“Just look at them,” Wiley says as she watches a fawn suckle. “They’re beautiful critters. They are not pets, but they are loved.”