1.) XJCraver - 12/29/2013

Weirdest thing I ever saw...

So I'm sitting on a ridge top this evening, and about a half hr. before dark here comes this buck. He's a little guy, yr. and a half old 8 pt. He's walking funny, weaving back and forth and limping. He gets to the top of the ridge in front of the stand, tries to go over the top, and literally falls down the ridge on his face. We're talking ~12 - 13 yrds, right on his nose, all the way down.

When he stops at the bottom, he thrashes around for a minute and finally gets up, and looks like his legs will barely hold him. He stands there a good 10 minutes, then tries to walk off - stumbling and weaving just like he was when he came in.

When he got to 25 I let him have an arrow - second guessed it the whole time, but I couldn't stand to see him suffering like he was.... Shot was as good as I've ever put on a deer, textbook perfect. When the arrow hit him he mule kicked, stumbled along the trail about 30 yds, and fell over dead. Other than 2 holes where my arrow went through he had no visible injuries, and no broken bones. I dressed him in the dark, but didn't notice any unusual sights or smells when I got in there.

Now - any of y'all ever even heard of something like that?? I'm gonna go ahead and butcher him, but I'm also gonna save his head and have him tested before we eat him. This is just weird, weird, weird, and I don't want to take a chance eating him if he's gonna make us sick.

Any idears???????

2.) billy b - 12/29/2013

I have never seen or heard of that before & I agree with you about having his head tested, he might have been chased a long way by a cat or bigger buck:cf:

3.) Go Bucks - 12/29/2013

Internal damages like hit by car?

4.) XJCraver - 12/29/2013

No internal damage other than the arrow wound. He was a mile and a half from the nearest road, so if he was hit he made it a long way before he got to me.

I think he could've been chased, but have no evidence of that - didn't see any 'yotes, and we don't have big cats around here. Could definately have been 'yotes or a bigger buck, though.

Still weird, and I'm still second guessing myself for shooting him. The way he was acting, I really don't think he was long for the world, though...

I'll get some pics up here tomorrow. And maybe I'll see some better evidence in the morning.

5.) chester phillips - 12/29/2013

Some deer get a brain disease, I forget what they call it. Better check with local game enforcement before you decide to eat any of it. could also be CWD.

6.) crookedeye - 12/29/2013

[QUOTE=XJCraver;14147]Weirdest thing I ever saw...

So I'm sitting on a ridge top this evening, and about a half hr. before dark here comes this buck. He's a little guy, yr. and a half old 8 pt. He's walking funny, weaving back and forth and limping. He gets to the top of the ridge in front of the stand, tries to go over the top, and literally falls down the ridge on his face. We're talking ~12 - 13 yrds, right on his nose, all the way down.

When he stops at the bottom, he thrashes around for a minute and finally gets up, and looks like his legs will barely hold him. He stands there a good 10 minutes, then tries to walk off - stumbling and weaving just like he was when he came in.

When he got to 25 I let him have an arrow - second guessed it the whole time, but I couldn't stand to see him suffering like he was.... Shot was as good as I've ever put on a deer, textbook perfect. When the arrow hit him he mule kicked, stumbled along the trail about 30 yds, and fell over dead. Other than 2 holes where my arrow went through he had no visible injuries, and no broken bones. I dressed him in the dark, but didn't notice any unusual sights or smells when I got in there.

Now - any of y'all ever even heard of something like that?? I'm gonna go ahead and butcher him, but I'm also gonna save his head and have him tested before we eat him. This is just weird, weird, weird, and I don't want to take a chance eating him if he's gonna make us sick.

Any idears???????[/QUOTE]

that's sounds a little like me on a Saturday night..

7.) billy b - 12/29/2013

That reminds me of you on a Sat night but who nos all that stuff

8.) Deerminator - 12/30/2013

[QUOTE=chester phillips;14158]Some deer get a brain disease, I forget what they call it. Better check with local game enforcement before you decide to eat any of it. could also be CWD.[/QUOTE]

Ditto

9.) bluecat - 12/30/2013

Keep us posted. I think you did the ethical thing though.

10.) Bob Peck - 12/30/2013

I've seen that behavior before. In order of guesses I'm going with:

1.
Exhaustion from the rut. Bucks will often lose over 50% of their body weight and some are unable to recover sufficiently because food sources are scarce.

2.
Exhaustion from a fight. Depending on where you're located, local deer densities and sex ratios ... this may or may not be a possibility.

3.
Dehydration.

4.
Blue Tongue aka BTV. Check for a swollen tongue and/or face and ah ... blue-ish tongue.

11.) luv2bowhunt - 12/30/2013

Every time I've seen a deer that had just been chased to exhaustion, their tongue was hanging out and they were constantly panting.

I'm guessing that wasn't the case since you didn't describe it. My first guess would be disease like blue tongue or CWD.

Hard to imagine a 1 1/2 old doing that much breeding that he was in total exhaustion, but it certainly is possible.

Hope you find something out and let us know.

12.) Jon - 12/30/2013

As Bob stated, BTV is a possibility and EHD is another. We lost approx 33% of our herd last year to EHD (Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease). I found 6 bucks in water puddles around 2 of our farms and neighboring farms had many more found. I have a young doe on video that was acting very similar to what you are describing.
You probably did the right thing shooting that buck.

13.) NEBigAl - 12/30/2013

Muley or whitetail?

14.) Bob Peck - 12/30/2013

Unless your deer looked like this [ATTACH=CONFIG]328[/ATTACH]

or this [ATTACH=CONFIG]329[/ATTACH] it probably wasn't suffering from CWD.

If the deer had been chased to exhaustion (coyote, dog) or was doing the chasing to exhaustion (rutting) he may have spent what little reserve he had. Panting or not, when you're spent, you're spent.

I was talking to one of my favorite wildlife biologists last week who was preparing a paper on environmental pollution and the effects on wildlife. The basic premise is cervids are a great "canary in the coal mine" in that as ruminants they have maximum exposure to even the smallest amounts of toxins in the water, soil and flora.

When I first read your post I thought of my days working in vineyards in Naples, NY. It was common for deer and birds to feed on the grape must fermenting in huge piles. Even the low level of alcohol in the grape must created birds that flew sideways into trees and deer that wobbled and couldn't navigate. Just saying.

15.) XJCraver - 12/31/2013

Thanks for the thoughts, fella's.

From what I've read on EHD, it's fatal fairly quickly (24-36 hrs), and is caused by an insect bite. Since it's been cold, I'm leaning toward that not being it. CWD has never been documented here, and he didn't exhibit any of the symptoms that I could tell are associated with it, either.

What I did was called a good friend of mine who has been hunting almost as long as I've been alive (and is the textbook definition of a woodsman), who came and looked at him. He was of the opinion that either dogs or 'yotes had been on him (our rut is long over, and he wasn't big enough to be much of a fighter) and he was just used up. I'm leaning towards that conclusion also, and had he been panting I'd be 100% in that camp (rather than the 98% I'm in it now).

He took him - I was half scared to eat him, and he lives closer to the town where the lab is - and said he would have him tested. He'll let me know if the tests turn up anything or not.

So, I guess I'll wait until I (hopefully) hear from him. For now, I'll just chalk it up to "weird occurences in the woods", and go buy another tag.

BTW, Team: No pics. :( He was in my buddies truck and gone before I even thought about the contest. Sorry....

16.) Firemanj - 01/02/2014

I had one similar to this a few years ago and the biologist in consulted seemed to think it was a parasite of some sort. Not sure but mine had the similar drunk like symptoms