Saturday late afternoon seen a 8 point buck limping real badly to feed with some does, closer look revealed its actually walking on 3 legs and moving very slowly while keeping his right leg off the ground, and was concerned for its well being, it wasn't the size buck I wanted but the suffering that its endured that concerned me. It's hoof / wrist area was swollen to over 3 times the size. I felt I needed to take him out of its misery as soon as possible, and as soon as I got the 308 on the sill, the buck had limped away into the brush. Never saw him again that afternoon before dark. If it was limping so bad, then it won't go far, and assumed it might hang around until the following day which was the last day of buck season.
Yesterday early morning I was in the blind at 5:45 am, sat in the dark barely half awake and it was 35 degrees. As soon as dawn broke, I seen a few does lingering about. Saw a 9 pointer and it wasn't what i wanted and let it pass. About 30 minutes after dawn broke, the limping buck managed to jump into the pen where my protein feeder and spinner feeder was at 210 yards, imagine on 3 legs, what a powerful animal. I put up a pen fence to keep the hogs out and it works. It limped its way to under the spinner feeder to eat the kernels of corn, while I glassed him to make sure its the injured buck, a few does jumped in to feed and blocked the line of sight. While waiting, I set the small bull bag on the sill and the .308 and checked the calibrations. As soon as the does and yearling cleared away from the buck, I settled the bead on the crease of the shoulder, and it was very slightly off broadside by about 10 degrees. The 178 grain ELD-M pushed by Varget found its mark, and the buck exploded out of the pen and jumped towards my direction with his bad leg dangling, and bolted out of sight. I let 10 minutes pass by before heading over. Once I got to the pen, I saw big pieces of lung matter strewn about, about 7 to 8 pieces. Backtracked where the buck headed out, and saw blood and tracked it about 30 yards. It dumped quite a bit of blood on the trail and on the site where it was found. I thank God for a buck on the last day of hunting season.

My question about the injured leg, after skinning it and the shoulder seems to have a normal color, but to be safe I discarded that bag leg. My question is will it have some sort of infection which may carry to the rest of the meat like sepsis or any other life threatening infection that may be passed to humans if eaten. I have it all quartered and on ice. Please do let me know if the deer is safe to eat. Thanks fellas.

Google hoof/foot rot in deer.

Snake bite?

Scroll down to page 9:
https://tpwd.texas.gov/publications/pwdpubs/media/pwd_lf_w7000_2068_spring2017.pdf
Couple of more articles:
https://anilogics.com/hoof-rot-what-is-it-and-what-can-we-do-about-it/
https://www.deerassociation.com/kansas-deer-facing-potential-outbreak-footrot-disease/

Fairly common in our cattle around here, that come in from the range and winter in corrals. The ranchers have to really try to keep the pens dry and not get muddy, infections get bad quickly. Don't see it so much in the deer, except for the ones living along the river or in the duck marshes once in a while, where they are wet all the time. In the last two years, they are starting to see it up in North Idaho in elk too.

😳

I discarded the bad leg, will the rest of the meat be fine for human consumption?
Thanks stxranchman.

I’m watching this because we have a doe that also has a bum front leg and needs to be culled. Her leg/foot is not swollen though. I too am wondering about the safety of consuming the meat. Can a processor tell if it is okay or not?

Ain't touching no meat on a deer with a disease.

Anytime I ever killed one with a gangrenous wound I left it laying where it fell. Not worth taking a chance.

The injury on that deer doesn’t look that bad.

I shot a doe couple years ago that was a mercy kill. I could tell she had a broken front leg from stepping in hole or getting caught in fence. Her body shape was really poor so I put her out of her misery. After inspecting her, I noticed she was a he (transgender deer) that had dropped his antlers because of such poor body condition. His front leg had compound fracture which dirt packed into the wound area. I drug him off for the coyotes.

I had a processor tell me one time how he could tell if the meat was still good on a deer. After it was skinned and in a cooler for a couple of days you could rub your hand over the meat. If it felt slimy and/or if it had a slight odor it was not good. He said they did enough deer that he could tell simply by touch.

Might discard that one.