Look at the back legs of both bucks. Anyone ever seen anything like this before? Know what causes it?



This picture comes from a buddy's place out towards Eden. He's run across a few deer like this. They are always bucks, it is always one of the back legs. The area is swollen and black, with almost no hair. As a result, the antlers on the opposite side are always deformed.

We are trying to figure out what causes it. We are leaning towards genetic fault. Other possibilities: snake bite, fence, or predator injury?

It's somethhing related to barnacle bucks by the looks of it.

Snake bites?...

fungus

Being always the rear leg, I'm gonna guess a fence maybe. All the deer I've pulled out of fences are hung by the rear leg. Don't explain why they are always bucks though.

Weird

Hanging their back legs in fences.

I had a fawn do that a few years ago. I cut her loose but over the next few weeks her foot swelled up like that. Her's was really bad. She developed gangrene and I had to put her down.

What kind? Never heard of it.

Stx has diagnosed one of mine as having hoof rot....don't have any real good pics of it, but believe he's right.

Elaphantitis?

Damn chiggers!!!

thats what it looks like to me...he cattle will get it to when they have to walk through alot of bad mud to get water...the only way we are able to treat it is to wash it out and put iodine on it daily ... the onle on the left isnt lookin good at all

Part Chupa?

foot/holf rot i mean

Would need a better pic but it appears to be hoof or foot rot. Not sure why it has started up but it was bad in the IH-10 areas of Colorado and Lavaca counties 2 and 3 yrs ago. Bucks appear to be more prone to getting it than does. My guess is purely due to bucks fighting in rocky/gravelly soils and causing cracks or splits at the hairline. The bacteria gets in and causes the problems. Also for whatever reason it appears more in rear hooves than front. It also appears to happen when deer frequent feeders, mineral or water trough areas. Foot or hoof areas will swell and the hoof can slough off in severe cases. It will usually not kill the deer but in severe cases where the deer gets it in more than one hoof then death is likely. It can reappear in the same deer the next year also. Weather really has nothing to do with as far as to wet or to dry.

You need to be careful, cause with the where your blind it, if you shoot a deer in the right position you might end up with a bullet hole in your GC

It's my buddy's lease. But, much like DJones, he's an expert at Shot Placement.

Don't know anything about it...but we had several like that a few years ago down at Ft McKavitt. It dang sure looked like a fungus of some sort had infected them. It didn't look like an injury.

When you kill a deer or find a deer dead that has it the joints in the hoof be swollen and full of puss. It will be black or discolored. If you check the joints they will be like mush and seperate with little effort. You can pull the hoof off with no effort. If the deer did recover from it they might have lost one part or the whole hoof.

so will it cause the opposite side horns to be little or is there a possiblity of getting 80" of trash growing on that side?

shoot it

No you have the same effect on antlers as if he injured that hoof. One side normal and one side dwarfed. In some cases is the buck has both a hind and front hoof with it then both antlers will be way off. In most cases you can not even recognize the buck even if he was mature.

sounds reasonable... you can't just tell me I have a shot at having 1/2 a huge NT deer...

If that is what you want to hear then I can type it.

sounds good should have shot him @ 5.