The opening day of deer season, around 2:pm a small buck wondered through the woods past my son, who's hat I could see through the woods, (he was on the ground, I was in a tree stand) and I radioed him to warn him and found him to be sleeping. The little buck walked past him and circled my way and headed straight for me. His body was on the small side, 1 1/2 year old, so I didn't want to shoot the youngster. The buck stopped and laid down twenty yards away next to a log and took a nap for an hour. I couldn't move or stretch unless I saw his eyes closed. From a taxidermist point of view, it was awesome to watch the buck nap with ears back and head down, yet alert enough to hear other deer come into his zone. I noticed that the squirrels did not bother him, but other deer alerted him. He could tell the difference between deer walking in leaves, and the squirrels hopping around in the leaves. By his actions, he knew other deer were coming in before I ever saw them. I thought what a nice life size mount of him sleeping would make because of his odd rack, three little points on one side, a knot on the base of the other antler with two beams growing out with one beam broken off. But I let him rest, and he walked away not knowing that I was there. That night I told my son that if he was around the next day, that we would harvest him if we got a chance.
10 days later, Thanksgiving Day, we hunted in the same area, a small forky came around, to small to shoot, and other fawns also but no big does or bucks. 11 am and time to go home to the big dinner. While walking around the edge of the woods, I jumped the small buck and identified the rack right away. He got up slow and trotted away into the woods and stopped. I tried to put the scope on him, but couldn't hold it on target due to my wobbly week legs. The buck walked out of the woods back to the field where I shot him with my muzzleloader. While walking up to the deer, I saw blood where he was laying down, someone had wounded him sometime after I had let him walk 10 days ago. A slug from a head on shot had grazed his ribs from behind his shoulder where it had entered, cut through every rib and exited back out by the stomach. Gang green had set in, even though he was not gut shot. This is two years in a row of harvesting wounded gang green deer. A total waste of meat. So I decided to do a life size mount of him after all. So here are some questions.
I did the search button trip first of all, while turning the feet on the deer, I found something that after 35+ deer harvested, I lost count, that in between the toes is a pocket of skin similar to you're belly button. On the search trip, someone said that this is a scent gland, never herd of that before. It does smell. Or is it just toe jam that is never cleaned due to the complexity of the creator? Can I cut this pocket out and sew it off short if it is not going to show between the hoofs?
Another question, do I cut into the pads to open them up to clean them?
Sorry to bore you with the story. Mr.T
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Geeze I know I'm gonna spell this wrong,lol.What you are seeing is called an interdigital gland.It's one way deer keep track of each other.When you see them stamping their feet they are laying down extra scent to alert other deer that there is something fishy there.They also use it to identify other deer in their range and know when a stranger walks through.No reason not to shorten it up as long as you keep the toes together.
You go to the head of the class in spelling. Gang green, however, is spelled gangrene.
The interdigital gland is located under the skin. The gooey stuff between the toes on the outside of the skin is the remains of slow chipmunks.
Just my lucky day I guess,lol.But I did already know about the small chipmunks,lol