Jimbo,
I certainlydo not have any credentials as a "Whitetail Biologist" but I do have a fair amount of experience and knowledge. Also have access to biologist on our staff.

The issues you bring up, joint problems, eye problems and disease are generally attributed to albanism, not color phase. I have heard that piebald's have some of the things you speak of, but the experience and what we have seen with piebalds is that these things are not connected with being piebald. It may be a geographic feature that occures in certain locals. True albino's do not have the gene for normal coloration and do not produce the enzyme responsible for skin, hair and tissue coloration. Albinism is the total absence of body pigment. The eyes of an albino are pink, because blood vessels behind the lenses show through the unpigmented irises.

Not all white deer are true albinos. Some white whitetails have normally pigmented noses, eyes and hooves. This is a genetic mutation for hair color but not other pigments. Most piebald deer are not totally white, they are only partially so. It is kind of like the pigment of the hair on their bellies and inside their ears didn't get the signal as to where to start or stop.

One would also think that piebalds would be easy prey because they are in stark contrast to their surroundings and other deer. We have found that they are harder to kill because they somehow know that they are so easy to spot.

Hank