One messed up blacktail

[billythekidrock]

Some of you may have seen my post at BTC, but I thought I would share it here as well.

Here are some pics that I took of one messed up buck a few years ago. He had so many problems that I don't really know where to start. I guess I will start at the ground and work my way up. Sometime in this bucks life he lost the lower half of his left hind leg. By the jagged but worn smooth bone, to me, it looks like it was snapped off just below the tarsal gland.



 I have seen other critters (bear & elk) with missing legs and usually they are worn smooth with leather like scars, but this one was different. This buck had a plum sized cyst or tumor of some sort off to one side of the break. I was going to cut it in half and take a look, but it just didn't sound good at the time.



From the broken leg we move on to the teeth.
Talk about a needing braces. Blacktails typically have 8 incisor teeth. This buck had 6 and they were not in a nice even row. They had gaps, angled in different directions and two of them were pointed like canines. I wish I had taken a look at the upper pallete to see if it was scared or affected by the sharp / crooked teeth.



Now onto his rack.
What a crazy looking set of antlers. His left side has 4 typical points as well as an eyeguard, but on the back side of the main beam it also has a couple of small kickers plus a small kicker between the back forks as if trying to crown. 8 points of some sort or another on the left side.





The right antler was all sorts of twisted. There are two main points with an eye guard and on the back of the beam where it should have forked there is a small blade like kicker. Just below the fork there is a knot and that is about where the forks start twisting.The pictures don't really show it, but they are twisted almost parrallel to the ears. There were 4 points of some sort on the right side.





I have heard that if a deer or elk has trauma on one side of the body it can affect the opposite side. I am not a biologist, but it seems to ring true in this case. Lower left leg missing = crazy right antler?

And last but not least the lead poisoning that killed him.

If you didn't notice in the frontal pic, this buck took a shot in the nose. The slug went through the nasal passage, through the brain and exited the skull, but stayed in the hide. We cut the hide back to get the slug, then cut the skull cap with a saw. We only needed to cut from the back of the brain cavity to almost the front before we ran out of bone. The rest we cut with a knife.

[Head-shot]

BTKR that is crazy I think you shot the Elephant man's pet deer. You should call him Lucky

[billythekidrock]

BTKR that is crazy I think you shot the Elephant man's pet deer. You should call him Lucky

Too funny. I did not kill this sad critter. Luckily I have never killed an animal that was missing a leg. I don't need the ribbing from my buddies. Though the 5pt I killed did have a fist sized break that was healed over on a front leg.

[M_ray]

That is crazy ... I have seen one deer with the hind leg missing below the knee, it was shot off but he didn't have anything going on weird with his horns.

[Michelle_Nelson]

I am willing to bet that deer was hit by a car. 

[billythekidrock]

That is crazy ... I have seen one deer with the hind leg missing below the knee, it was shot off but he didn't have anything going on weird with his horns.

One of my brothers shot a 3 legged bull elk. It was a 5 x 6 with the 5 pt side being quite a bit smaller, but nothing too crazy.

[billythekidrock]

I am willing to bet that deer was hit by a car. 

Or shot... we have seen a few with damage similar to this. Usually we find some lead, typically .22 caliber. Happens all the time near the rez.

[Head-shot]

Hey I just thought of something... if the deer had teeth like that maybe it was related to Longtat's bear?

Just playing Dave....

[Michelle_Nelson]

Maybe with one of the injuries.  But it looks to me like that jaw was broken thats why it was missing teeth and healed the way it did.

I have seen deer hit so hard it severed or nearly severed their legs at joints.    

[Michelle_Nelson]

Hey I just thought of something... if the deer had teeth like that maybe it was related to Longtat's bear?

Just playing Dave....

 

[LongTatLaw]

Head shot...you suck...I was so gonna say that this deer was the deer that humped a female bear and out popped my down syndrome bear...lol

you beat me to it.

[hogsniper]

I ran into a 3 legged bear in idaho one time. We finally killed it and found that it had about 4-5 inches of an arrow shaft in its shoulder. The leg was hairless and shriveled all the way up to its body. Had like a 300 lbs bear frame but actually only weighed 175 lbs.   That is one crazy story btkr...thanks for sharing..

[Head-shot]

TAT,

Hell yeah buddy... git er dun... or sit back have a beer and watch someone else doin it 

[mossback91]

Maybe with one of the injuries.  But it looks to me like that jaw was broken thats why it was missing teeth and healed the way it did.

I have seen deer hit so hard it severed or nearly severed their legs at joints.    

Yeah seen it happen to a doe took off the bottom half of both hind legs. Was laying in my grandparents yard in the methow. Dad went to shoot it but it was too fast for him and crossed the highway and then so on just kept running from in the neighborhood so he couldn't just shoot at it he needed to eb close and it finally got away from him and disappeared. Dunno what happened to it but man was it fast suprising since it was so hurt.

[huntnphool]

was he harvested around the Hanford or Satsup nuclear power plants?

[robb92]

We had one running aorund here on base that was missing the lower half of his left rear leg and the right side of his rack went straight out to the side of its head. For being three legged they can move.

[PacificNWhunter]

cool pictures...you never know what you are going to find out there.

[Bigshooter]

That is one of the strangest looking deer i have ever seen.

[T-ROY]

red X's

[saylean]

From the looks of it..you did him a favor. Thanks for sharing. Cool pics/write up.

[boneaddict]

Cool looking buck.