Cronic Wasting Disease can be in any deer, elk & bison whether it looks healthy or not. The best practice is not to cut across any bones thereby you would not expose the central nervous system which is where CWD resides. I bone all animals coming in to my processing facilty without cutting one bone and have found it is actually a little easier when I do it this way. When I am done all that is left is a skeleton. You should always wear gloves when you handle the meat forsanitary reasons anyway. What you decribe seems to be just an old buck.

I have seen allot of sick deer in my time. The worst was a big 12 pt buck that had Blue Tongue disease. The animals tongue litterly swelled up so big that hecould not eat or drink and died a verypainful death (I was not present). The meat of a deer that has Blue Tongue can be eaten according to the DNR.