Deer disease is this happening anywhere else

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Countryside : One Thread

I live in rural pacific northwest and the deer have a disease here that is causing them to lose large patches of hair and eventually die. we have contacted several colleges and wildlife authorities and they all have a different answer. Also my husband drives log truck and spends several hours a day in the wooda and rarely sees more than a couple of deer a day ( the elk are flourishing) are there any other areas of the country that are having simalar problems.

-- Ronda (thejohnsons@localaccess.com), April 06, 2001

Answers

everything is fine here the last time I looked. We see about 11 deer a day. They seem pretty perky. What does the authorities and others say they have? Somewhere in the threads it said something about other wildlife was sick, don't remember just where. Ken might know. Lexi

-- lexi Green (whitestone11@hotmail.com), April 06, 2001.

The deer and elk in Colorado and Wyoming have Chronic Wasting Disease, which is suppose to be simular to mad cow. The DOW is now asking for the heads from the hunters, so they can be tested before consumed. Funny thing is, that the DOW has known about CWD for years and always told the hunters that they were safe to eat.

-- Lynette (fear_the_bear@webtv.net), April 06, 2001.

Here in Michigan our herds are amazingly healthy after a very hard winter. I was expecting to see more winter kill than we experienced. Maybe farther north it did happen.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), April 06, 2001.

We've noticed deer with rough and lighter colored patches of hair this spring, too. We've fed the deer for years so have an opportunity to see their condition daily. This is the first time we've seen this. Hope it's only shedding after a hard winter and not disease.

-- Peg in NW WI (wildwoodfarms@hushmail.com), April 06, 2001.

Oh, thank goodness. I read the title as BEER disease...

-- William in Wi (gnarledmaw@lycos.com), April 06, 2001.


Apparently around here (northern VA) the deer have something called black-tongue. I have no idea what this is but hunters were instructed not to eat the venison. The deer I've seen look other-wise healthy. Is it possible the deer around you have mange? (not sure deer can get mange, but the foxes around here have it something terrible!)

-- Elizabeth (Lividia66@aol.com), April 06, 2001.

Thank you all, your answers were interesting. Not all the deer have this and it does look like mange that was the origional diagnosis from the game dept. But its been going on for several years and there are several different explinations from authorities. My husband and son have seen several up close and it is truely sad, makes you sick to see them. This disease usually runs it's course by the middle of summer and usually hits the yearlings. When we first saw it several years ago we thought it was just shedding but the deer eventually waste away. I hope this remains isolated to this area and someone finds out how it is spread. Ronda

-- ronda (thejohnsons@localaccess.com), April 06, 2001.

I don't know if this is related, but my dogs used to get mange when I fed them the really cheap dogfood (the kind with "tankage" in it.) We fed them a better grade of feed and added more raw stuff to their diet and the hair grew back glossy and soft in a few weeks.

Another possibility is organophosphate(sp?) poisoning. There is a pesticide (can't remember the name off-hand and I don't have the paper in front of me) that you daub on livestock. It absorbs into the bloodstream and repels biting pests. Gossip says that some of treated animals develop symptoms very similar to "mad cow disease." Patches of hair come off, the animal wastes away, staggers around and eventually dies. Apparently, the chemical interferes with protein formation when exposed to UV resulting in a mutated protein aka "prion."

How much of this is wild conspiracy theory type stuff? Who knows, but I decided against the once a month flea treatment for my cats and dogs.

-- dmtaylor (dmtaylor@fanninelectric.com), April 08, 2001.


Before I moved west from Western NY deer were getting Rabis.

-- Hendo (OR) (redgate@echoweb.net), April 08, 2001.

Plenty of deer (and elk) here in Idaho, but we have been warned about that chronic wasting disease thing. I'm not going to pass judgement on how it went from a 1 in a million thing to all over out here.

But, so far as I can see here (there is a HUGE herd(?) right down the road, about 100 head or so of whitetails, bucks, does and fawns all seem ok.

-- Sue Diederich (willow666@rocketmail.com), April 09, 2001.



We have plenty of deer here in upstate NY. I have the same herd coming around nightly to raid my birdfeeders. They are sure hungry but their hair looks fine and they aren't scrawny. I haven't heard of any deer disease this way; if anything we have too many deer.

-- amy (acook@in4web.com), April 09, 2001.

Hi! I don't know if this will help deer, but My horse the first two years of his life would lose big patches of his hair every winter when he needed his hair the most. I tried different things. I even had the vet come to treat him. The vet prescribed anti-biotics they did'nt work either. Finally, I tried this stuff called Dr. Feiblings Blue Cote. That was what did the trick. I guess it was rainrot?......

-- Michelle (phalvers@ccisd.k12.mi.us), April 09, 2001.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ