I saw this little button buck again yesterday evening.He has only 3-legs.I think a fellow up the road shot him with a crossbow back in september and hit low and cut his right foot off.The fellow is known for takeing wild shots and had told me back then of hitting one very low and couldnt find it.My question is,since this deer has had a rough time of it,would you shoot him next season or let him go if given the chance?He looks like hes going to make it and has made it 6 months so far.I feel sorry for him and think i would allways pass him up and let him walk forever,but dont know the right thing to do.Besides the area is heavy hunted and someone else will probley harvest him next season anyway..........Anyone ever had this problem or see a 3-leg game animal like that or injured up really bad?I think they shoot 3-leg horses dont they for mercy?What do you hunters think about this Buck?

Are you asking should you shoot him now to put him out of his misery? I've taken deer during the season that had been recently wounded for that reason but if he's made it this far he will be okay. Deer, like dogs, can do surprisingly well on 3 legs. Regarding next year, that is up to you. If you see him and don't want to shoot him I see nothing wrong with that.

BBH, a suggestion. When you type your posts put 2 spaces before starting a new sentence. That will make them easier to read.

Jeff

If it was already such a long time ago, the (I guess) clean cut from the arrow should be healed and the animal should survive.

I have seen some here, both roe deer and pigs, shot by hunters who "take aim by going up with the recticle on a front leg" and fire too early. Most wounds had healed pretty well, this might be due to the fact that the animal could lick and thus, clean the wound. They also adapt quite easily to their changed limbs. I once observed a healty, threelegged doe with twin fawns. It was even difficult to notices, she just "hobbled" a little.

Usually, the antlers on the opposite side of the hurt leg will turn out deformed and would make an "interesting" trophy, if you let the animal live.

I was hunting in Colorado one time and the rancher we were with shot a bull elk who ran into a deadfall area. He pushed through there and a bull jumped out dragging its right rear leg. He shot it and when he got to it found a bull with an old wound from a previous hunting season. The right rear leg was completely wasted away and had no muscle in the hindquarter on that side. The hoof had grown about 6 inches long and weirdest thing was that the opposite side antler was a long club like beam with no points. The skin on his hindquarters was peeling and there were places where you could see the meat under the skin as it peeled off. It also smelled like rotted meat.

Looking around the deadfall he found the original bull that he shot dead from the first shot. We called the game warden and they were really good about it and advised him not to butcher or eat the injured elk as the possibility of disease and infection was very high.

I had heard that if a bull or buck is wounded on one side of the body the antler on the opposite side may grow in deformed but it is the first time that I saw it.

The first deer I shot had run at least 2 miles trying to get away from the 6 of us. I shot the deer in the eye looking at me from about 20yrds with my 30-06 180gr Hornady bullet. The deer dropped dead I gutted & tagged it happy to have harvested a deer finally after about 4yrs with a bow and 2 yrs with a rifle. When I got the deer home to skin it I found out that it had been shot previously in the front knee and his whole front leg had gangrene in it. I was happy to have put the deer out of its misery but not happy to have to thru away the entire front leg.

Check your regulations; in Kansas if you harvest a Deer that is inedible you must tag it anyway.

As amazing as it may seem this little fellow will almost certainly surive to a ripe old age if given the chance. We have a 2 1/2 year old doe which frequents the yard who lost the front right leg as a fawn ((6 month)(yes it was shot off.) This deer gets along amazingly well, though it shuns others of it's kind. When we first sw her Christmaseve a few years ago the leg was attached. several weeks of swinging around and it feel free. That improved the situation dramatically... They are some tuff critters. Additionally, my wife took a nice buck a few years back that had benn arrowed and a broadhead imbedded in it's spine, as well as a current season's low behind the abdomen shot witha three blade. Now that was a tuff buck too!

I have lost count of how many hogs with short, misshapen or missing front legs I have shot. Most of them could run quite well on the healed-over stump. Some of them I shot simply because they looked like they were limping, only to find a completely healed, old injury.

Cull him from the heard if you get the chance. His rack will most likely always be deformed but, at 1.5 years old next season he would make a fine table trophy.

Good Luck!

Reloader

I think as sad as it may look, the deer will be fine if he's got this far. I wouldn't go out of my way to look for him to shoot, but if I saw him I might shoot him if no other bucks were present. Being the trophy hunter I am, I'd be torn between ending it's suffering or passing to later shoot a wall hanger, however, is the deer really suffering on three legs?

I did see a show once where a deer went running by with a broken front leg that was swinging all over the place. The hunter passed, but since the rack was decent I'd probably have shot him. A missing leg seems a lot less painful than a leg that is still there and swining around.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Reloader:
Cull him from the heard if you get the chance. His rack will most likely always be deformed

/QUOTE]

Oh Bullshit.

The Buck is gaining weight and looks great compared to the way he looked a few months back.
I think he will make it for sure now that winters gone.
I just never have heard/seen a 3-leg deer.
I will not have to shoot him as iam surrounded by hunters who think if its brown its down.
I passed over 35 deer last year looking for a wall hanger.I have learned the hard way if you want a nice buck just wait and he will show up,dont shoot the first deer you see.
also it takes a few years for a deer to grow a nice rack-Let em go -let em grow I say!
I just wondered if it was sporting to shoot a injured/crippled deer?I would take him in season ,but dont want him after seeeing the hard time hes had,the other deer always are way ahead and he just kinda takes up the rear all the time because hes slow.he feeds alone too.I would like for him to make it long enough to see how his rack turns out.
thanks for the input and this just goes to show that a good percentage shot is highly recommened instead of a hail mary/hope and a pray type shot.
It is a sad site to watch him struggle to keep up with the rest of the herd..............

Several years ago we were hunting a three legged doe.For the 2 or 3 years we hunted her she had 2 fawns and ran through the woods like any other deer.We never did harvest her.

BBH-

If that deer has made it this far, he's going to be fine.

Nature is amazing in the way it deals with injured animals. They are usually weeded out pretty quickly if they're not going to survive in the long run. If they get through the initial stages, they adapt quickly & impressively.

On a side note, I just had my black Lab operated on last week. She started limping and favoring her one hind leg. However, at the vet, x-rays revealed a more serious problem. She had pretty much completely torn her ACL, and needed reconstructive knee surgery. She's laying here beside me right now, sporting a nice line of stitches/staples. But, even with the torn ACL, she was continuing to run full speed. If it bothered her, she limped. However, if her mind was on chasing something, she just held it up & ran as fast on three legs as she normally does on four legs!

quote:

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Reloader:
Cull him from the heard if you get the chance. His rack will most likely always be deformed

/QUOTE]

Oh Bullshit.

Sorry study your facts before you post such nonsense.

When whitetail bucks are injured, there racks almost always grow deformed from then on. The funny thing is it grows deformed on the opposite side of the injury. Say a buck breaks his right leg severely, his left rack will be deformed. If you don't believe me ask any whitetail ranch manager, I can think of at least 8-10 bucks that I have taken myself or witnessed that suffered from injuries early on which resulted in deformed racks. Some of the Bucks had quite impressive racks on one side (the injured side) but, they usually had only a spike or a spike w/ nontypical stickers on the other side.

We filmed one buck for years that had a severely broken leg. He either got shot or hit by a car. We nick named the buck "Limpy," that buck was last seen last year at an age believed to be 8-9 years. His rack was always deformed, some years one side was quite nice. After taking several bucks like Limpy myself and observing his life, I would definitely cull deer of that sort from the herd. They would lose battles while fighting over territory (many of he three legged deer I've taken were quite scarred from battle) and they stood a much higher chance of getting killed by coyotes and other predators. If you can only kill one buck you may want to let em' go but, if you are a meat hunter, they eat just like the rest of em'. Here we can legally take 6 bucks per season so, I do my best to take every injured deer I see.

Good Luck!

Reloader

I have a good book on whitetails, so I'll look into it. Until then, I'm still not buying it. Also, just in case it is true, what's the point of culling it? Just because a deer can't win fights with other deer and he has goofy antlers? As crazy as it may sound, I bet a three legged deer with goofy antlers would be a trophy to someone. Cull it because he 'aint perfect... I don't get it.

I was thinking about that too.If the little buck was born with great trophy genes,just because he lost his leg from a bad shot,his genes would still be the same,he could still produce good off spring right?i mean looking at humans,folks that are not perfect and have lost a limb along the way,there children are not inferior ,so why would a cribbled deer produce crippled/weak deer? i got to see him struggle so hard at his young life and since life has been so hard for him is why i really didnt want to harvest him,hes had a rough go of it.Iam glad hes doing fine now and i will not be trying to harvest him.These bucks around here fight like hell in the rut and hes going to have a hard time anyway.Plus the other hunters in my area will take him,they try to shoot everything as it is.The fellow who shot him with the crossbow i know will take him first chance he gets.....Thanks guys for all the interesting stories and great info!!!

Hey, the coyotes need to eat too .

Good Luck!

Reloader

He will live and do fine..his horns on the opposite side of the wounded leg will always deform BTW, as the supplements from his feed go to the healing process and work on opposite sides of the brain in animals...I have seen and shot a number of deer that healed up from such wounds..If the wound is below the knee then he will survive as a rule.

I shot a whitetail buck(3x4) about 15 years ago in the bow season that had about 8 in. of its right hind leg missing. The bottom of the leg had turned into a big ball of scar tissue. I watched it walk towards me from about 100 yards and noticed it had a slight limp. The main beam on the left side went straight out from the side of his head giving him a wide rack apperance.The other side was a typical 4 pt. I put an arrow through him, he trotted about 30 yards stopped, turned to look back in my direction and fell over dead. When I walked up to him the first thing I noticed was the missing part of the leg. If it wouldn't have been for the limp I wouldn't have seen or noticed that any thing was wrong with this buck.I suspect he lost his leg to a rifle hunter in a previous season.I guess the antler growth was affected by the injury.I have read were the so called experts say that an injury on one side of the body will affect antler growth on the opposite side.

I have taken a deer with 3 legs, I did'nt know it at the time but I thought it was odd how he was doing as he was eating branch ends. When I shot him (7 pointer) he ran like a normal deer.

The leg missing was the right rear and had calloused over where the removal was at the joint. Horns were deformed but hey the deer was surviving just fine.

I think every deer has the right to grow old if he or she has the smarts to and if he gets taken so be it, but just because of the leg missing no need to harvest it unless you want to.