Deer casualty

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Burnt Ash

Nomad
Sep 24, 2003
338
1
East Sussex
On Sunday afternoon, while I was sitting half asleep and replete after a good lunch and a hard morning's work clearing a tree that had been blown down across the stream, I had a call from a neighbour. A walker had reported an injured deer caught in a fence. Could I come and assist?

When I got there, my friend had managed to extricate the juvenile fallow buck and had brought it back to an empty stable. It was badly injured. It had attempted to jump the fence and had caught a hind leg between a strand of barbed wire and the top strand of the wire stock fencing. The twisted wires had cut right through to the bone all round the hock and the poor little thing must have been hanging there by its hind leg for some time. The only humane thing to do was to end its suffering without delay.

We gently wrapped its head and eyes in an old towel to keep it as quiet as possible, carried it outside onto some soft ground (for safety) and killed it with a swift shot to the back of the head.

Apart from its injury, the deer appeared to be in good health and condition. My friend suggested that I might like the carcass 'for the dogs', but I had other ideas. After gralloching, inspection of the animal's organs confirmed its sound condition and I had no hesitation in preparing it for the larder. I would far rather the deer had not caught itself in a wire fence, but waste not, want not.

Burnt Ash
 

andy_e

Native
Aug 22, 2007
1,742
0
Scotland
That's a shame to hear about the buck, but am sure you'll find plenty of good uses for it - waste not as you say.
 

robin wood

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Oct 29, 2007
3,054
1
derbyshire
www.robin-wood.co.uk
Sad for the deer but good for it to be used. We used to get a lot of road kill fallow when I worked at Hatfield Forest, sometimes they were OK but sometimes they were inedible. I think it depends on how much stress the animal goes through, I was told the effects were due to adrenaline pumping through the muscles but the result was meat that all tasted very strong like liver. I would recommend cutting a bit of steak maybe from the saddle and trying it before spending a long time on butchery, bagging freezing etc.
 

BorderReiver

Full Member
Mar 31, 2004
2,693
16
Norfolk U.K.
Poor little chap.:puppy_dog

Glad he's not been left to rot.

A lot of young deer seem to get spooked by traffic or dogs and end up being dealt with by the RSPCA. Does anyone know what they do with carcass? Is it just left if it's not on the road?
 

Red Kite

Nomad
Oct 2, 2006
263
0
64
London UK
I wonder how common this type of accident is? I came across a deer in exactly the same circumstances whilst walking on the South Downs Way last year.

Fortunately it hadnt been there too long and I managed to free it by sawing through one of the fence posts, and it galoped away into the woods as soon as it was free.

Perhaps it would be worthwhile placing a thin plank of wood between the top two wires on fences to try and prevent animals getting hung up while trying to jump over?

Stewart
 

Burnt Ash

Nomad
Sep 24, 2003
338
1
East Sussex
I wonder how common this type of accident is? I came across a deer in exactly the same circumstances whilst walking on the South Downs Way last year.

Fortunately it hadnt been there too long and I managed to free it by sawing through one of the fence posts, and it galoped away into the woods as soon as it was free.

Perhaps it would be worthwhile placing a thin plank of wood between the top two wires on fences to try and prevent animals getting hung up while trying to jump over?

Stewart

These accidents are not uncommon. Deer are remarkably durable creatures and cases of three-legged deer surviving quite well after injury are not at all rare. Such animals would be culled as a management priority, though.

Incidentally, I absolutely hate barbed wire: it is the bane of the countryside and it's use probably justifiable in just a tiny fraction of the situations it's typically employed in. I'd ban it tomorrow. In my experience, farmers and landowners are also pretty lazy about removing redundant barbed wire. I have encountered loose strands of old, redundant barbed wire on countless occasions in the countryside. And there is nothing more lethal to get your wading brogues caught in than a well-anchored loose coil of old barbed wire when wading in a swift salmon river. If your feet are tied and you get knocked down by the current, you can drown very quickly.

Burnt Ash
 

spamel

Banned
Feb 15, 2005
6,833
21
48
Silkstone, Blighty!
I was out in Germany a year or so ago, when I came across a large number of deer. Jamie, the lad I used to go up the woods with, followed them with me and after a while we headed back to our shelter, the leaf litter one I posted a few days back. A large area of the woods had been fenced off to allow it to grow wild and also to allow the funghi to grow in there. The fence was an eight foot tall wire fence, with the large squares in it.

There was a small deer with its' head through the fence, and its' antler were stuck. I went forward to free the poor beast and it really got agitated and started to kick and buck around. I was a bit worried that I might catch a hoof in the goolies, but felt it was my duty to help this animal. Suddenly, it was free and rocketed past me just as I was drawing close to it. It was exciting to see it run off, I think that maybe it had come across our camp and the smell of the fire had spooked it and it had crashed into the fence.

They do get all wierd when they come across anything that is unnatural, I remember one getting stuck behind one of the block of flats in Hameln. There were two exits between the large fence from the school and either side of the building, but it just got confused and ran about like a loony. One of my mates saw it and went down and basically drove it out from one side, I think he was a farmer in a previous life!
 

pothunter

Settler
Jun 6, 2006
510
4
Wyre Forest Worcestershire
I saw a spaniel get caught in exactly the same manner a couple of seasons ago on an old wire fence where the barbed wire had become loose fortunately no damage, other that a very grumpy spaniel.

Before Christmas one night my daughter and I were following a car threw the forest when a yearling fallow buck ran out in front of the car, low impact collision but enough to break the top of one of the deer’s legs of pelvis difficult to say.

The driver of the other car was a bit upset and decided not to stay around when I sent Beth back to the truck for a knife dispatching was very quick but all the time I could hear another deer moving about in the forest and snorting I guess it was the doe and the fawn had been following it. I decided to take the fawn about twenty yards into the forest and leave it so that the doe could satisfy herself of the fawn’s death and carry on her way. If had taken it away she would have been back and forth across the road all night and we would have had another accident.

Anyway being the frugal fellow that I am I went back in the morning to collect the carcass only to find someone had beaten me to it!

Pothunter.
 

RobertRogers

Need to contact Admin...
Dec 12, 2006
361
0
62
USA
There are many abandoned farms from the 1940's in my area, all overgrown with forest now but still retaining plenty of barbed wire. When I come upon it I like to spend some time cutting the strands down with my leatherman.

Imagine how many deer run full tilt right into this stuff...very bad for many decades after the farms have completely disappeared.
 

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