Our five year old doe Lilly (Purple #809) died Tuesday night after a long struggle. After an
autopsy we discovered that two softball sized wads of shade cloth had
shifted and plugged her intestine off, half starving her. Shade cloth is
a cloth barrier that farmers use to create shade for their animals,
hence the name. We do not use shade cloth, on our farm so it was in her
stomach ever since we purchased her from another whitetail farm a year
ago. They've also been having problems with other deer eating shade
cloth and dying from not being able to pass it and took it all the cloth down.
Now it makes sense why 809 never gained
weight properly and that she only had one small fawn
this spring when in the past she always had twins. Her body just
couldn't process food properly. No matter how much medicine we gave her
it wouldn't have helped.
Sarah Yurisic from The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture came and took a brain stem sample to test for Chronic Wasting
Disease, which is mandatory for all whitetail deaths. She also extracted the lymph nodes, and piece of ear, and 809's identification tag. Why the extras? If the brain stem proves untestable the lymph nodes may be tested also. The piece of ear and farm tag is for DNA.
It's all part of farming.
