Thread: Ouch

Good outcome Tahr, you don’t have to decide whether to do or try to hit it while it’s flipping around. It was in for a slow terrible death.

Originally Posted by Tahr

Ha ha. That has been suggested.

I walked 17km over the last 2 days. Saw 18, and that's the only one I shot.

Had a great time though.

Attachment 170984

New hut looks very spiffy Bruce.

Seen a bunch of Sika caught up in the top wire over the years

Their eyes bulge in fear and they cry out when you grab them and pull them back over the wire to release their leg.

They then drag the affected leg out into the paddock and sit down

When you come back the next day they have died in the same spot you last saw them in.

I’m sure it’s the build up of stress that kills the Sika, very sensitive to stress they are.

Originally Posted by 7mmsaum

Seen a bunch of Sika caught up in the top wire over the years

Their eyes bulge in fear and they cry out when you grab them and pull them back over the wire to release their leg.

They then drag the affected leg out into the paddock and sit down

When you come back the next day they have died in the same spot you last saw them in.

I’m sure it’s the build up of stress that kills the Sika, very sensitive to stress they are.

Do you think this is due to the accumulation of toxins as a result of the crush injury (I assume this happens in animals as it does in humans), or simply the stress?

I really don’t know, it’s likely a combination of the things you mentioned.

I read somewhere years ago that sika never succeeded as a farmed deer species because they were just too nervous and high strung and can’t handle farming like other deer. They were likened to a person with a severe anxiety disorder. The ones in parks in Japan etc seem pretty chilled though.

Back in the day, the wife and I used to see some truly horrible outcomes with the high fences in South Africa’s Northern Cape and in Namibia, around the edge of the Kalahari. You’d be pootling along in the truck minding your own business, when out of the corner of your eye you see a springbok hurtling towards you. Or the wife yelps LOOK OUT! It’s one of the mysteries of nature, why the animal decides it has to go from where it is to your left, say, to way over to your right, come what may, just as you’re driving by. It’s like the presence of the vehicle creates an additional stress that overrides its sense of self preservation. Gotta go gotta go gotta go.

Tragically what the antelope has forgotten is that there is a very high mesh fence running along the side of the road. The fence is either to keep the antelope in private land on the one side, or to stop other antelope entering the private land from the other. Exactly the same as the high fences along the dairy country on the edge of the Pureora Forest.

The springbok of course leaps as per the rugby emblem - they won’t walk on the road, they’d rather jump over it, which is a sight to see believe me. So when they hit the fence they are often a good 2m+ up in the air. It’s horrible to witness them hitting the fence at full tilt. After they hit the ground and assuming they haven’t already broken a leg or two, they have another go. As you drive along you come across dead antelope that have got caught up in the fence, some are hanging in midair having obviously managed to get a head through, which is terminal. Somewhere in an old photo album which is probably in the loft we’ve got all celluloid photos of these poor bastards hanging on the fence.

Fences are of course a necessity and a given, without them we would not be farmers, but professional animal chasers. But they are horrible bloody things nonetheless. On the edge of such a huge wilderness like the Kalahari, it’s very hard to witness the carnage of these beautiful yet pathetic creatures, wholly unable to adapt to their new reality.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

tell you one thing,when your dog does it on electric fence,you got to be VERY carefull getting them out,bite like a bastard and you getting zapped to boot.....poor buggers cant help themselves and lash out in pain.

When I first started shepherding I had a huntaway get hung up, I was only halfway through my 50m sprint to him and the stock manager had already got his insulated cutters out and cut the hotwire, right next to where I started running from.
Classic Young Bull, Old Bull! Dont even know what I was going to do when I got there!
Dog flopped out feeling sorry for himself, but otherwise unhurt.

When I had A few hectares, had a Young Merino try to jump my electric fence, saw it from the house, its back leg got caught in the top wire and it fell into the water race, still hooked up. Turned off the fence and ran across the paddock. To late electrocuted and drowned, VERY GOOD eating.

My brother used to work at the venison works in Te Kawhata.... one day, a R3 hind happened to get out of the stock yards and run amok while someone managed to close the gates to the site. A group of staff cornered the poor thing, and it charged my brother who was holding a gate (while trying to herd it back into the yards). The panicked animal charged the gate my brother was holding - knocking him (all 180kg at the time...) on his arse.
When they eventually corralled the animal back into the yards, it keeled over and died of overheating/stress pretty quickly... There is no doubt that deer are hardy animals, but they are also more prone than other domesticated stock to stress and fright...

Originally Posted by Nickoli

My brother used to work at the venison works in Te Kawhata.... one day, a R3 hind happened to get out of the stock yards and run amok while someone managed to close the gates to the site. A group of staff cornered the poor thing, and it charged my brother who was holding a gate (while trying to herd it back into the yards). The panicked animal charged the gate my brother was holding - knocking him (all 180kg at the time...) on his arse.
When they eventually corralled the animal back into the yards, it keeled over and died of overheating/stress pretty quickly... There is no doubt that deer are hardy animals, but they are also more prone than other domesticated stock to stress and fright...

Reality is deer have been domesticated in NZ for tens of years whereas sheep/cattle etc have being domesticated for thousands of yours..they’ve got a wee bit of catching up to do. I’d also imagine that hind was in the works…cos she was a mad fucker…


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Originally Posted by tiroahunta

Reality is deer have been domesticated in NZ for tens of years whereas sheep/cattle etc have being domesticated for thousands of yours..they’ve got a wee bit of catching up to do. I’d also imagine that hind was in the works…cos she was a mad fucker…


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...didn't stop the joy I felt at having my brother knocked on his arse xD I genuinely felt worse for the hind than him - and still do.

Two years ago my 3 year old huntaway caught his right back leg while jumping a fence, ripped the leg right out of the hip joint, $5500 later in vets fees he was good as new, still running at 50kmph for a km up the road behind the ute, but he has stopped jumping fences but will still clear gates.

Its can happen to us too. Know an acquaintance who locked his keys in his house, so tried to climb in through the loo window. Got part way in and fell, got hung up on one leg. Not being the most athletic of chaps he got stuck there the whole night, and was only when he didn't answer a family member's phone call that they went around to his place and discovered him. Ended up losing the whole leg.

there are some horrific photos of deer in stock trucks that have fretted themselves to death....nearly buald etc...if one fawns it can set the whole lot into downward spiral...Im pleased I dont cart deer.