That's a good point. We've all seen how tough these animals are. If he does live,game cam pics will show if he's putting on weight.

One interesting thing, though, stxranchman, is that of the 12-14 game cam pics I have of him, he's never seen stopped and actually eating the corn! He always appears to be "passing through," which leads me to believe that he's damaged, and thinks that the feeder is the place to go, but his "eating mechanisms" are screwed up to the point that he can't take a bite and swallow it. I sure hope he's on the road to recovery; Lord knows, he's been suffering for quite a while. I'll keep dumping the game cam's pictures every day, and will keep looking for him to see if I can assess his health and well-being. I won't take him out if he looks to be "on the mend."

I wouldn't discount the amount of damage stress and fear can do to an animal as sensitive as deer. Having a long piece of wire getting caught up and having to fight it all the time as stx said could take a huge toll. The stress and fear of the original event and subsequent ones another.

Agree with stx. All that damage resulted from the wire, which he appears to have finally gotten free of. Hope he makes it.

Hate to see stuff like that.

Caught two more pics of him from yesterday. The pics are clear enough that I can see that he has gotten rid of the wire completely, but he is some kind of damaged. Look at his left ear; and the look at the left side of his head. Nasty wounds.

Yep, but he appears to be eating now. I'd try and get him some protein in a trough at that feeder. Something like Antlermax Textured. Might help him to recover more quickly. Corn isn't going to help with rebuilding all that lost muscle.

I still know what I would do if he was here.

Still haven't gotten a single image of him with his head down in the pile of corn. And on most of the pics, he has his mouth gaped open which seems a bit unnatural to me. Of course, he may be chewing some corn and the camera always happens to catch him with his mouth open; mid-chew, so to speak. And, don k, two days ago I was ready to shoot him on sight because he appeared to be in such distress. Not so sure now. He is obviously a cull buck that I will try to collect when deer season opens, but I'm no longer on a search and destroy mission.

I agree on protein. Now that he is eating, he may well survive. Keep us updated, this is my new soap opera. Will he make it? Tune in next week!

Looks like he may have broken his jaw while trying to get out of the barb wire. If the warden said to put him down when you see him, Id do that. Doesn't look like youll be hurting your genetics any getting him out of there.

A quick update: he hasn't appeared on the two game cameras he's been seen on. I'll keep watching and update everyone if I see him again.

A couple of things I'd never do:

1. Assume that a game warden would admit that he/she told me to dispose of an animal with a wound in an illegal way.

2. Post on a public message board {that GW's are monitoring) that I'd "have taken care of it already".

You guys do what you think best. But I know many folks who paid through the nose thinking that their GW was their bud.