Dead Deer?

Found this doe dead on our place about 20mins ago. Nowhere near a highway and I didn’t see any signs of injury. She was about 100yds from a little water hole. EHD or blue tongue maybe?

That sucks!

If you find out post it. I am in Coosa County also

given the time of year I'd go with EHD. No external sign of EHD, but that is not all that unusual. It affects every deer differently .

People in Alabama don’t talk about EHD and blue tongue as much as they do up north. However about 10 years ago, we had a pretty bad outbreak in Bibb county. My place in Illinois was wiped out about 10 years ago. Literally wiped out! Mother Nature is a bitch on these animals.

Several years back, we had Blue Tongue around our lease. Tough hunting that year. I was able to kill a 6pt near the of January. At the processor he pointed out the curled and split hooves. He said that deer had lived through the disease. First I'd heard that. Deer ate fine though.

EHD is very common in AL, although most of our native deer have quite an immune response to most native strains of the virus. There’s over a dozen different types. You have to isolate the serotype to distinguish them. Typically years of high mortality are because a serotype they haven’t seen in several years occurs. Blue tongue is not as common in AL. It’s very rare. I can’t think of a single confirmation the years I worked at DCNR.

Coosa, also a few years ago we sent off several deer that died in summer either inside or near hog traps, none of which had a positive EHD confirmation. Cause of death is still not known. They seemed perfectly healthy, and died inside the traps quickly without a struggle. Very odd. Deer die of unknown causes just like anything else.

I thought you could call the game warden to come and get it and have it tested!

It’s encouraged to report them. If they have someone who can get to it before it’s too late for testing they will. In this heat that’s usually within 12-18 hours.

That deer looks healthy, apart from being dead of course.😀
Wonder if many does ever have death due to pregnancy or birth complications? Like cows.

does die during fawn birth all the time.

Also EHD in dead deer often presents as if nothing is wrong with the dead deer. Sometimes they bleed out the mouth, eyes, nose, etc. Lots of times they will have swollen mouth, tongue.

Matt, I'll admit I still don't know much on this subject. Folks in the area were just saying it was Blue Tongue. Deer sightings were down that year.

Yeah. I wasn’t necessarily typing that for you. There’s a lot of people who call it blue tongue in the south, and although that’s a very similar virus transmitted the same way with almost identical symptoms, ours is usually EHD. I was just letting people know.

for all practical purposes they are the same.....

Do yall ever consider animals dying from stuff like heart attacks and strokes like humans do?

I ask because it never crosses my mind. Do you reckon this deer(or any deer out there) could have died from cancer or a brain tumor or something like that? I'm not sure how common it is but stuff like that has to happen from time to time.

Deer die from cancer and other diseases just like we do.

Lightning possibly? Only reason I say that is because my father has had several goats killed by lightning over the years during bad storms.