Dead Deer in Our Yard

"Most people don't realize that large pieces of coral, which have been painted brown and attached to the skull by common wood screws, can make a child look like a deer." -Jack Handey-

Today we woke up to find a dead deer in our backyard. It isn't unusual to find deer in the backyard, in fact every morning when I come home from work at 6:30 am there are always at least 5 sitting in the grass. Sometimes they'll stand up as the headlights pass over them, but generally they just look at me and keep lounging. We've actually not minded the deer, it is kind of fun and I would throw rotten food out to where they hang out as little treats. A couple days ago we had a loaf of french bread that had gone moldy. So I chunked it out into the field...but maybe this could have been a bad idea.

This dead deer has no evidence of any injury. I first saw it and called Rhett,

"Maybe someone shot it. It is hunting season." I disagreed--you can't hunt in people's backyard. "Maybe it was shot and made it this far." I didn't think so.

I suggested that it was hit by a car on the highway we live on and dragged itself that far, trying to get to the trees. Rhett thought it a possibility.

So he went to investigate and returned to report no injuries of any kind.

Apparently this deer just killed over. "Maybe we should gut it--think of all that free meat." I wrinkled my nose in disgust. "Nasty Rhett. That dead carcass has probably been there all day. Plus, doesn't it cost like $200 to have a deer prepared at the slaughter house?" Rhett considered this, and replied: "I don't think it has been dead that long. Rigamortis has set in, but there is minimal bloating. We'd always gut deers ourselves when we'd hunt." Even after considering Rhett's diagnosis, I objected: "I still don't want to eat it. Plus, if a deer just dies, it is probably sick and therefore we don't want to eat diseased deer. Doesn't deer meat taste crappy anyway? Not only would it taste like crap, it would be diseased. And you really don't have time to skin a rotten deer." At this Rhett agreed and went back to studying for his Infectious Disease final he has tomorrow morning--coincidence?

So at this point he plans to bury the deer when he has time because the Animal Control won't come collect the carcass because we live outside city limits. I'm hoping it will freeze solid tonight. We did consider carting it to the highway to let some redneck come pick it up to eat. They do that with turtles around here, and I'm sure a deer with no injury on the side of the road is the top road-kill discovery out there. We also thought about just dragging it to the ditch/ river bed that goes through our yard...no one should use that water for drinking but you never know.

Thus another dilemma with living in the back woods of rural Missouri. That last animal problem we had was the dead groundhog pups Rhett had to extract from our ventilation in August, so we've had almost 3 months rodent/infestation/animal free, so not bad....can I emphasize enough how excited we are to get out of Missouri when we move back to Utah next July!!!

So was it my moldy bread "treat" that led to the demise of this young buck just getting his spikes? I guess we'll never know, but I do know this. I have accidentally eaten moldy bread quite frequently throughout the course of my life and I never felt any negative affects from it...natural penicillin.