We had a surveyor at our house two days ago marking boundaries. He noticed a buck that was struggling at the edge of our property. Turns out he had locked antlers with another buck, the other buck was already dead and he couldn't disengage. A couple of does were right next to them watching the whole thing.

Wife called DNR who came out and assessed the situation. They told her there was no way to remedy the situation, and the living buck was already showing signs of significant stress so they euthanized it and carted both deer off. My wife said that the two bucks were pretty large. Unfortunately, she did NOT get pictures, she was pretty saddened if not disgusted by the whole sordid affair. Also, the DNR person told her to keep her distance because the living buck would do just about anything if she gets too close out of its fear and panic.

Just wondering how common this is. The DNR people said it was, unfortunately, not all that uncommon. Location is North Georgia. The bucks have definitely been running this past week or so.

Happens more than you would think

I cut one loose from a dead one a few years ago,he was winded/stressed pretty bad, but I saw him a few weeks later and he looked fine. I bet the one that was still alive would have made it had y'all been able to do it without DNR showing up.

It really is not that rare but not something you see that often either. It also depends on the area and the buck/doe ratio. The closer it is to the 1:1 ratio, the more competition there is and the more bucks fight….and more instances of being hung up.
In 30 years at our ranch we had 5 known instances of bucks being hung up. Of those 5 times we only lost both deer one time. The 4 other times we lost one of the two deer 2 times and the other two times both survived….a lot depends on how long they have been hung up.
We would always keep a Sawzall in our UTV's and trucks for quickly cutting one side of the antler off of one of them.
We would throw a large towel/blanket over their heads and then cut the antlers as quickly as possible. Most of the time they would be exhausted to the point they were not real hard to work….but always had to use caution.
The DNR guys could have done that but most won't make the attempt.

Here is a picture of one of those instances on our ranch. The deer on the left survived just fine.

Dang

I'm with Gunny, the DNR guys could've tried to save the second one depending on the actual circumstances. We found two deer locked up last year and one was already dead. The alive one was pretty damn worn out but we were able to get him bull dogged to the ground and I was able to get a tie rope around his legs while my buddy and another guy was on him. After we tied him up we were able to get them apart and the one did end up surviving. He was so worn out that he basically didn't run once we turned him loose. He went about 10 yards into the brush and just watched us leave.

This.

It's not the catching where they whip your arse, it's the release.

We have never had one be aggressive to us afterwards….the ones we did either just layed there exhausted or ran off totally, or run off a bit and rest.
One had a look in his eyes that seemed to say " Oh my goodness, Thank you!"

Yea only thing I've ever gotten was a swift kick to the chest or gut when letting the legs go. Always best to be wearing the brush jacket for padding.

Should've tased it!

Never occurred to me…

Got a European mount of two that died locked up. Only reason I found it is because I decided to go investigate a big group of buzzards in a dry creek bed.

Had to dig around in the photo library, but I found the two high fence deer we cut loose on a buddies grass lease for his cousin that owned the place.

Deerdude said:

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It's not the catching where they whip your arse, it's the release.

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The release is actually pretty dang easy from my experience. You need to take their back legs and put them strait out backwards where their belly is on the ground. That gives you the ability to get out of the way and they're not able to kick or raise up backwards and stick you or anything. I've done a little bit of capture/relocation with various species and that is what I was taught to do. Seems to work as I've never been injured and I've not witnessed anyone so far.

Edit to add that it is slightly more difficult than this but this is kind of the basic method if that makes sense

I could sr it work god that way. Yea TTT was an awesome thing for a few years, we had some pretty popular doe. I worked with them on their side, and not sedated. After untying legs I'd hold top leg extended back and bottom leg pushed forward with my foot. Try to get as far back from the hooves before releasing them. Sometimes that bottom leg got over the size 11 snake boot toe and gets you. No biggie, it smarts a little sometimes.

Nature is metal.

Never seen that in real life but I've seen a fair amount of pictures of it over the years. The other one thats hard to see (hard as in, I feel bad for the deer) is when they get tangled up in bailing twine or some such other man made thing and it hangs them up.

Yes sir. I've done the same when darting and then give the reversal drug. Only got hurt one time and that was when we darted a Zebra colt. Little sucker bit the hell out me on my thigh and pitched me into a cactus bush.

Zebras can be mean as hell! I've got one client that I do spot light surveys for every year and he's got a young zebra Colt that you have to keep an eye on. Owner has told us that he'll sneak up on the ranger and bite your arm if he can. 3 years ago he followed us pretty closely and I was nervous as hell. He might've grown out of it by now as he hasn't followed us the past 2 seasons but I'm not a fan at all.

O.G. said:

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Nature is metal.

Never seen that in real life but I've seen a fair amount of pictures of it over the years. The other one thats hard to see (hard as in, I feel bad for the deer) is when they get tangled up in bailing twine or some such other man made thing and it hangs them up.

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I was walking through the south Texas brush onetime when I noticed the ground beat down really bad in about a 8' circle between a group of mesquite trees. Basically went from tall grass to nothing but dirt. I was perplexed trying to figure out what happened here until I looked over and sitting at the base of one was this guys antlers tangled in barbed wire tangled to a tree.

Looked like he put up one hell of a fight fighting the coyotes off, but they won in the end. By the time I stumbled by it was just a pretty fresh spinal column attached to the skull and antlers.

Took it home and put it on a plaque. My buddies would always tease me saying "nice deer you didn't shoot".

A quick Google image search and you can find some real wild ones. The ones where one buck lives and is running around with the losers head stuck to them as some sort of dark trophy are crazy.

ATX_AG_08 said:

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O.G. said:

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Nature is metal.

Never seen that in real life but I've seen a fair amount of pictures of it over the years. The other one thats hard to see (hard as in, I feel bad for the deer) is when they get tangled up in bailing twine or some such other man made thing and it hangs them up.

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I was walking through the south Texas brush onetime when I noticed the ground beat down really bad in about a 8' circle between a group of mesquite trees. Basically went from tall grass to nothing but dirt. I was perplexed trying to figure out what happened here until I looked over and sitting at the base of one was this guys antlers tangled in barbed wire tangled to a tree.

Looked like he put up one hell of a fight fighting the coyotes off, but they won in the end. By the time I stumbled by it was just a pretty fresh spinal column attached to the skull and antlers.

Took it home and put it on a plaque. My buddies would always tease me saying "nice deer you didn't shoot".

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Taking a set of antlers like that with nothing but wire cutters is a significant accomplishment.

I've used cedar loppers on leg joints/bones before, I wonder if they will work on antlers? On the dead deer being clean wouldn't matter

Not my video…shared with me last year

Cuidado

I've tried loppers and they don't work very well. I guess cause the antlers are so dense.

Gunny456 said:

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I've tried loppers and they don't work very well. I guess cause the antlers are so dense.

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That's what I figured.

I think that's when I'd use some Xylazine (Rompun) and Telazol

Man, I used that for years then switched to Bam and never looked back. Both sedation and reversal do much faster and neater than Tolozol.
Edit: it's damn hard to get tolozol past spelchek.

I tried to get BAM from our vet and he said we needed to be set up with an oxygen source on any animals we darted or he wouldn't sell it to me. Seemed silly to me but….
Funny…in the old days we used Sucostrin for just about everything except whitetails…. then we used Rompun and Telazol for them.
It's been about 8 years since I've darted anything for capture. We started using helicopters and net guns almost all the time. . More expansive for sure but we could do in 5 hours what normally would take us two or more days or more…….and we rarely hurt an animal. So much better, imho than drugs…..but they do have their uses.
We basically just ended up using our Pneu Dart gun for administrating antibiotics or such.

CrossTimbersW said:

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Zebras can be mean as hell! I've got one client that I do spot light surveys for every year and he's got a young zebra Colt that you have to keep an eye on. Owner has told us that he'll sneak up on the ranger and bite your arm if he can. 3 years ago he followed us pretty closely and I was nervous as hell. He might've grown out of it by now as he hasn't followed us the past 2 seasons but I'm not a fan at all.

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It's seems you'd be able to hear him coming on that Ranger.

RoadkillBBQ said:

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CrossTimbersW said:

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Zebras can be mean as hell! I've got one client that I do spot light surveys for every year and he's got a young zebra Colt that you have to keep an eye on. Owner has told us that he'll sneak up on the ranger and bite your arm if he can. 3 years ago he followed us pretty closely and I was nervous as hell. He might've grown out of it by now as he hasn't followed us the past 2 seasons but I'm not a fan at all.

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It's seems you'd be able to hear him coming on that Ranger.

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You would be surprised...