The second doe I shot w/ a bow this year had either been shot before or hit by a car. As I was skinning her, just below her left, front knee, there appeared to be a second knee. It really looked like she had a second knee joint below the normal one, turned 90 degrees out. Actually, it was where her leg had been broken. The break was at least two years old. Very well healed, no signs of infection or problems. She walked normally before the shot and ran like a scalded dog after, for about 50 yards anyway.


The wildest thing I have found came about two years ago. Between my kills and the deer I clean for others, I average around 10 to 12 a year. I had never seen this before. Anyway, I had shot this very mature doe, probably 4 1/2 or 5 1/2 years old that I had shot with a muzzle loader while she was quartering away. The shot clipped one of her rhumen and whenI was getting the loins, I heard a loud KER-PLUNK in the gut bucket (we do not field dress the deer here as we are rarely more than about 30 mins from our skinning shack and do not want to encourage the yotes and buzzards). Anyway, I got curious and reached into the blood and yuk and pulled out what I thought was a rock. I washed it off and it appeared to be a very smooth stone, about 4 inches long, 2 inches wide and an inch thick. Very smooth,palewhite surface. I did some research and found that it is called a bezoar stone (spelling?). Apparently this is the result of a deer eating someting like a rock or a nail while grazing and it gets into one of the stomachs and can't move on, so to speak. Well, kind of like an oyster, the deers internal organs start coating it with a calcium/bone mix to keep it from being an irritation to the stomach lining. Apparently they are pretty rare (How often do you go digging through the stomach contents of your deer!) to find anyway and are considered good luck.
I keep it in my office in a glass cabinet w/ some other items.
Hank