tough little buzzard

discusdad

i had seen this little guy in late spring, antlers about 4 inches in velvet, hobbling around on a broken left foreleg. then nothing until 2 days ago. i figured he died from his bout with a car bumper. well lo and behold he is back and eager to do some snacking on the wild bird seed i put out for the feathered friends. california quail, eurasian dove, madpie, cardinals. jays, finchs and sparrows.

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discusdad

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discusdad

this is Half Rack, a year older than limpin buck same broken left leg. i think there is a jerk teenage driver doing his hunting in town out of his 4x4 tree stand. half rack is going to live thru the injury also, not sure how mobile he will end up tho. might have a long term welfare case on my hands. injured left leg>>>crappy right antler [media][/media]

mogley98

Just curious without medical attention do they heal where they no longer limp or are they always lame?

discusdad

the little one seems to be doing just that limp is barely noticeable at this point. hard to tell how bad the break was compared to the larger deer.. his limp was severe as was the total non use of the limb. the leg seems to have a enlarged area under the skin between the shoulder and elbow--reenforcing sleeve of bone material mabey. once the bone is fully healed, the larger buck will still have an altered gait

gearheaddad

I find antlers fascinating!
So interesting how an injured hind leg affects the opposite side antler!
There are just so many in interesting and amazing things about antlers, antler growth, antler damage, antler shedding, etc etc!

Okie743

I could hardly believe some of the healed wounds I've seen on Whitetail deer over the years.

Seen one very big antlered 8 pointer that his front ankle just above the hoof was the size of a baseball and he was not limping before I shot him. I cut it open and their was ligament type white tough tendons of some type that had bridged the broken bone.

Seen another with all it's ribs broken just off the backbone looked like a tree had fell on his back and all the ribs were back together with slight buldge at each healed rib joint. Was a nice big 10 point.

I've found quite a few Deer that were healed with arrow tips and part of arrow inside.

Tough animals.

spasmcreek

feed em well.....be a fun watch

discusdad

i think the little buck visited last year as a fawn with his mother.after eating, he goes directly to bed down in the back yard just like last year. he is very much at ease with my routine. not convinced on the half rack buck isf he is a returnee, or just hunger brought him here this summer. he is much more wary of me.

grdad45

I shot a 9 point several years ago that had a useless left front leg. I had healed in a screwy way, so he couldn't even put it on the ground. I had a picture of him a week earlier, and our game biologist told me he was about 5-6 years old, and we needed to go ahead and take him out due to his age and condition. He was getting around pretty darn good on three legs, though. His right side had only three points and was way smaller than his left.

Okie743

Forgot to mention in the earlier post I seen and watched for awhile a Mature Whitetail Doe with one front leg missing, completely healed and doing good.

bambihunter

gearheaddad wrote:

I find antlers fascinating!
So interesting how an injured hind leg affects the opposite side antler!
There are just so many in interesting and amazing things about antlers, antler growth, antler damage, antler shedding, etc etc!

It is interesting that genetics play into this as well. We went through a ~3 year time frame where all we were finding were one sided bucks, almost all missing the right side. It didn't seem it was a particularly off year for its diet and this was Kansas farmland not remote mountain area.

They really are tough. I wonder how much pain some of these guys endured during all the stories mentioned. As a person that lives with constant daily pain since '94, I can sympathize.

bpost

A few years back I was deer hunting out of my back field blind. Several does came out and one had a pronounced limp from the back left leg. I harvested her and found the thigh bone had been broken. It had overlapped about 4 inches and a large bone mass had formed over the broken area. That 4" shorter leg showed why she was limping but the injury was well healed and she was mobile. She was a mature doe and provided excellent table fare. I kept the leg bone for a while and wish I still had it to show folks..