jaysweet3

Bucks at this time of the year do a lot of the two Fs,fighting and the other one. some forget to eat and drink. Years ago My pop cam across a buck that was down in the middle of a field miles away from a road. He picked the head up by the antlers and noticed that the eyes were closed. Suddenly the eyes opened, the deer kicked a time or two and expired.

AJ52

You said 2 tines broken/missing. If damage to tines appears fresh, infection can set in by entering fresh wound thru blood vessalls to brain.Can very well cause death and not uncommon from what a F&G biologist told us about 4 yrs ago when I found stone cold dead 185lb+ - 8pnt in some thick marsh woods.Not a nick on this guy.One rack was stuck 3-4" in dirt from dropping dead.

After it was determined there were no wounds causing death F&G next question was "were there any points broken off".

He was clean as a whistle inside and out - Except - for 1 broken tine - pretty fresh - maybe month + -.

He hadn't been dead for more than 3-4hrs after a 35deg night, so after a lengthy phone conversaton with F&G, I took Pics,tagged and froze him up.

Wife thought I was a sick puppy for taggin him but all of us ate it and here to tell the story!

Vogt_51

When you dressed him, did you find any food in his stomach, intestines, or whatnot? If not, he could have just as easy had an infection in this throat from maybe eating something in the dirt that cut it, it got infected, swolen and all that. No eating would definately hurt his health, not that he died of starvation, I doubt that. But with no food, and perhaps no water,the stress on the heart, and maybe the brain, would be pretty bad. Just my take, you never know.

neck4752

Maybe he was a real player and didnt use protection with all the does and it finally caught up to him???

bowhuntn87

We opened the stomach and it was full of half digest afalfa. I dont think that was the problem. I forgot to mention that as we dressed it, the blood coagulated almost instantly and turned into a gel. ( it was 15 deg. i dont know if that had anything to do with it.) Other than that he was normal. Tomorrow i'll be getting the rack most likely, at the same time i'll look at his brain , and see if there is anything wrong.

Sureisaniceskimask

Copper31

If he was a fighter and chasing does I would be willing to bet he just ran himself into the ground. I have seen it with bird dogs a few times. They don't know when to stop. They die of exhaustion.

farmchick

We have seen a couple go because of exhaustion here. They do get kind of strung out in the rut. In our area we have also had 8 or more found while out and about that have died of "blue tongue". Then again, it is a living creature, anything could have happened.

bowhuntn87

When we dressed the deerthe meat was a very dark red as well... I talked to vet last nite, and he said the meat would have been fine to eat, but he looked healthy. I was a big bodied deer, id estimate about 180 to 200 live weight he wasnt too skinny. The rut ended about 2-3 weeks ago... can they die of exhaustion 2-3 weeks after?
this was the deer i had been hunting all bow season

Sureisaniceskimask

You should have just shot it after it died and told people that you got it hunting. Nobody needs to know all the details about how it really died. HAHA