Deer has a dirty rear sick, lazy? IDK
Wisconsin
Contributors to this thread:
Just wanted to get some opinions regarding something that I spotted on an extremely small fawn that I seen yesterday and today.
Basically the fawn is the smallest Ive ever seen, about the same size as a August fawn, except no visible spots. When she turned, I noticed that she had black smeared all around her rear end and tail area.
I'm not talking a little bit, it looked like about a 8"-10" smear on her rump and then it was also smeared all over the inside and sides of her tail.
Is this something to worry about? Could she be sick or have something wrong with her? Just curious on thoughts and ideas from anyone here to see if I can get an explanation.
I will try to get a pic if I see her again, hopefully good enough shot to help explain visually what I'm talking about.
Thanks for the insight!
doesn't sound good, based on size of the deer and messiness.
I found a dead deer with the same thing. It looked disgusting. Really small deer. Had pics of her on camera and she died day the day after pics were taken. I assumed some really bad dysentery and died of dehydration. I was surprised how small it was.
What are the people near you feeding?
I remember seeing one like that also, small fawn.
To my knowledge, nothing being fed other than food plots and cut ag fields..
do you think I should take her out or let nature run its course? Don't want her to suffer, however don't want to take her out unnecessarily either..plenty of doe tags
I would rather take her out, and dispose of body (maybe call your warden, and see if they want to test her. We did the same thing years ago to a sick deer. The warden picked it up. We never heard back, but CWD has not yet been indicated for our county, so must assume it had something else wrong with it.
Could be a lot of things; a bacteria, virus, parasite, congenital abnormality, ect. If it's small it probably won't make it through the winter, but scavengers need to eat too. Circle of life.
Scours. Usually caused by R. Coli, Rotovirus or the like. It likely will not survive heading into winter.
Talk to your warden before you take it out. Mostly to give him a heads up if you plan to put it down and ask whether or not you should tag it and if he wants to take possession for testing.
Sounds like a case of mudd butt. Usually from too many candy bars and junk food. Doesn't sound good for the deer. Keep us updated
The closer you get to gun season, the more different things show up in the woods for the deer to eat. Peoples bait pile sites have a smorgasbord of crazy stuff in them nowadays with who knows what as ingredients. It could have just had a bad experience with digesting some of that stuff.
I have seen this twice when I used to hunt up north. It happened 2 years in a row, young deer, and after corn piles became much more part of the landscape.