Whitetail wounded warrior.

[Reagan]

These pics are from a couple of years back. There was a buck that had shed much earlier than any other. He had been passed several times during late season doe hunting. But there was one evening when a bunch of deer were in a plot and some spooked. The shed buck had been spotted earlier but the spooking deer caused some confusion on which one he was. The hunter that evening ended up putting a bolt thru the shed buck's lungs.

I butchered him and these are the autopsy pics.

His feet were in bad shape. The white pattern is like some does I have shot off this property. They don't have white socks but they tend to have extra white on the legs.

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[Reagan]

After I skinned him, it became clear that this buck had some other issues. Check out the area at the end of each screw driver.

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[Reagan]

Here are the same points from the inside.


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[Reagan]

I found the corresponding holes in meat around his neck and shoulders. You can tell there was damage but they were healing.

It became clear that this buck lost a fight and took a significant shot from a nice buck. The wounds were around 4-6 inches into the meat. I considered throwing out the whole animal but decided to not use anything even close to the wounded areas. We ate him and everyone survived. He tasted fine.

Just goes to show you these animals can survive a lot. Mother Nature can be cruel regardless of what the anti hunters say. This guy was so beat up he shed his antlers about 2 months ahead of the the others. I do think he would have survived but he had to hate taking each step on those feet. He was often the first in the plot and I am guessing he bedded close by. He could have been a non typical the following year but we will never know.


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[SD51555]

Those feet looked in rough shape. Probably a good thing you took him. Beats getting ripped to shreds by wolves or yotes.

 

[Bill]

Someone, I think on this site, once told me deer that live through blue tongue or EHD show foot lesions like those.

 

[dipper]

Wonder if there was some deficiency to cause that to the hooves?

 

[Reagan]

My dad actually shot this deer. We eat more of them than he does so I ended up taking it. It is true that Ehd can cause the feet to look bad if the deer survives.We have only found one Ehd deer in the 11-12 years that my folks owned the place and that was a couple years before this one.

He didn't have much fat and and had clearly been gored. Dad had seen him without antlers for at least month before he was killed. I thought the feet were due to the stress of nearly being gored to death. Those are small holes but imagine that a buck is not sticking the points in and pulling them out the exact same way. There was some ripping and tearing. I imagine he looked a lot worse before we noticed him.

There is no shortage of yotes on this property. I have had them clean up a gut pile within hours of putting it out. The plot is in view of their house. I think he may have stayed close by and that may have helped him avoid the yotes.


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[buckvelvet]

Good gravy those feed look horrible, good thing ya'll took him out cuz that would have been miserable to walk on.