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Australia
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1 |
During a visit to a deer farm, I was told that if a stag was castrated at
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wrong time, they could grow lots of
velvet which could end up hanging
down over their eyes. Is this the same as perruque head? |
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Or is this a condition occurring in a different type of deer/when the deer
is castrated at a different stage of development? |
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You are correct - any male deer castrated after puberty becomes a perruque,
with continuously growing velvet antler that never hardens. Not a good outcome.
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International
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| 1 |
We have a young (3 years) male that scratches his antlers and every season brakes them off somehow. This time |
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he managed to get himself tangled up in a rope that resulted in splitting the antler. The damaged part had fallen off but the stub keeps staying moist and the flies are pestering him terribly. We are concerned, as we were told that the flies will lie eggs in the wound and that the maggots can burrow down into his brain and we would then need to put him down. Is this true? He is quite tame and eats out of our hand, but when we try and apply a spray (Wound - Sept), he won't let us near him the minute he smells the stuff.
Please advise if there is any other product that would be easier to apply, or if it is even necessary. Should we rather get a vet in to sedate and treat the wound? Appreciate your advice. (South Africa)
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The best way to deal with this problem is to cut the antlers off at about 45 days after he casts the previous year’s antlers.This is the process called velveting which every farmed fallow buck undergoes here. The growing antler is very sensitive and some form of analgesia must be used Commonest approach here is to sedate the buck with intramuscular xylazine (if he is tame you can do this with a hand syringe at about 1 mg/kg, then leave him in a pen until he can be caught – the xylazine produces quite good restraint but not enough analgesia – this is achieved by a ring block with lignocaime. Your vet should know this – use a meat saw or similar and cut the antlers straight across about 2cm above the coronet; and the hard “button” that forms is then cast when the full antler would have cast. You may have to repeat this process if there is significant regrowth, or you can wait until the regrowth just starts to harden, at which point you won’t need analgesia – just cut them off with shears or a saw under xylazine sedation. There is absoutely no truth in the maggot story – do not put any spray of any sort on the cut antlers.
(8 January 2012)
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| 2 |
I am the veterinarian at the Chattanogga Zoo in Chattanoga, TN, USA. We have a herd of White-Tailed Deer of |
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varying ages that were all acquired by confiscation by our wildlife resource agency and were deemed non-releasable back to the wild. All of the males were castrated after puberty before we acquired them, and their antlers show it.
One of the "middle-aged" males has an antler that chronically and consistently has a slowly-enlarging area of bleeding and ooze. If given enough time a cave-like defect forms in the antler. There has been no response to multiple types of topical antibiotics/antiseptics, as well as oxytetracycline and TMS. Twice I have removed the antler, but the lesion forms again near the base and progresses up the antler. Previously I have been unable (for financial reasons) to culture or perform pathology on the antler. CBC and chemistry panels were normal.
I have been unable to find anything matching its description in any literature and no one has responded from the zoo veterinarian association with ideas. Do you have any particular possible diagnoses? I have read about Actinomyces causing "liquification" of antlers and cranial abscessation syndrome, and I am tempted to try penicillin. Does this sound reasonable? Thankyou for your time. |
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The condition that you describe is the inevitable result of post-puberal castration of male deer, referred to as a "perruque". It is common and is a permanent state of continuous antler growth without the normal hardening taking place. The antlers become misshapen and prone to trauma and secondary infections. They are not very attractive and require regular trimming for their lifetime. This does not occur if castration is performed pre-puberally.
(19 June 2009) |
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3 |
I have heard from some Korean students that in South Korea there are deer
farms where families cut off the |
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deer's antler (themselves) for use in oriental medicine. Does cutting
off the deer's antlers hurt it? Do they bleed and do they grow back?
Thanks. |
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When deer are in the growth phase of their antlers each year the antlers in
velvet are fully sensitive with their own blood and nerve supply. If
the antlers are harvested for medicinal purposes there must be some form of
analgesia applied and for control of bleeding a tourniquet may be necessary.
If antlers are harvested early in the growth period there will always be
some regrowth in that season, with the hard antler "buttons" being
cast when the full antlers would have been cast if harvesting had not
occurred. Growth of the new antlers then starts almost immediately.
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4 |
I certainly wouldn't recommend this on an energetic wild deer. We penned our
adult bottle-reared deer between |
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2 fence panels, and tied off his soft droopy antler parts with self-adhesive
bandage, to restrict blood flow. 10 days later we penned him again.
The pieces were blackish brown and looked dead. We anticipated having
to cut them off, but they were hanging by a thread so we just grabbed and
twisted. There was a little bright blood, and we held a clean cloth
tight to his antler for a moment to help stop it. Our deer appeared
more stressed by being penned than by the procedure, and walked off and ate
corn from our hands afterwards. Did we risk infection going to his
brain or any other concern?
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I guess the main risk from using this sort of ligature is tetanus, and I
would certainly cover the animal for this before tying off the antlers.
He obviously found the whole procedure to be quite stressful, so of course
there is also the risk of his injuring himself in some way.
There is also a risk for the handlers, so on balance I cannot really
recommend this method. |
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5 |
This deer wondered up on the farm last bow hunting season and I took it in
to protect it. I tried to find the owner |
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because it was hand raised,
with no success. It had one 7" long spike and the other was broken off about
an inch long. I cut off the other to match. I agree with
everything I have learned here. However, the nubs of antler didn't fall off
like I think they should have and I was a little concerned about it.
I was giving him a bath the other day and he stuck his head in through the barn
door which was ajar. Something startled him and he jerked his head back and
popped off the right nub. The velvet has already started to grow around the
nubs and I was thinking that it might cover up the nub and cause the new antler
to be weak.
I have treated the exposed wound with a triple antibiotic ointment and it has
already started to close up.
Should I remove the other nub before it’s covered up with velvet or will the new
growth dislodge it on its own? It sounds hollow. The nub that popped off looks
to have had a little live bone still holding it on near the center third of the
dish. This is a very rare deer and I know the danger. |
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John, he certainly is an interesting animal. The situation with his antlers
is not all that unusual, since in my experience antler "buttons" such as you
describe are occasionally not shed as the full antler would have been.
This can result in new velvet growth around the button, with bizarre shapes
in the new antler if nothing is done. If you attend to it before the
button is buried in new growth you can pull the button off in most cases.
If it is buried you might need a veterinarian to use sedation and local
anaesthetic to remove the button.
I am far more concerned about your own safety, in being with this tame fallow
buck. I can only repeat the message that tame male deer eventually become
DANGEROUS to anyone who approaches them, and I am afraid that your own situation
is no different. |
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6 |
What are the names of antlers in order or points in order? Eg: G1 or G2? |
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My knowledge of some aspects of WTD is rather limited, based on little
opportunity to work with the species in this part of the world. I understand
from a Canadian colleague that the points are named as G1, G2, G3 etc starting
with G1 nearest to the head (equivalent to the brow tine in most other deer
species). But there is apparently a rather complex scoring system, which
depends on whether you are scoring a wild deer or a farmed one. There are also
two types of antler - typical and non-typical. I suggest you talk to someone
local with a better knowledge of this than I have.
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