Big bucks dead! Why?

Why is it always the biggest bucks on the ranch that die. ..? The last few years , about this time of year , we seem to lose a breeder buck. We leave our breeders in with the does until first week of May or so. They shed antlers around the first or second week of April. We have 6 groups of breeders with no adjoining common fences. The bucks are relatively calm but not tame. We don't lose a deer all winter in our herd of over 200 . The bucks are coming 3 years old or coming 4 years old.

Yesterday one of our almost 3 year olds was crazy fine in the morning and at 3pm when I fed he didn't get up right away. Noticed a little drool on his lower jaw and by 4 pm I drove past him on the way back and he was dead. This has happened in 4 of the last 6 years. Always one of the top bucks in the herd. . Our postmortem examination doesn't reveal anything real unusual. Once we found a bit of clear fluid around the heart. Maybe? We rarely lose another deer the rest of the summer.

Any thoughts?

Kevin

Higher levels of testosterone lowers immunity. 

Have you always left the breeder bucks in with the does that long   I take mine out alot earlier!  Could they be in rut too long and rundown is why your having problems   I dont know Im just trying to help!  JIM SIMONSON

Thanks all for ideas on this. Jim, I leave them with the does for convenience. With everything carrying antlers for so long here I don't want to reintroduce the breeders to other antlered bucks and have that problem. In this case , and I think prior deaths , the buck has already fully recovered from rut. This one weighed 371lbs after death and looked great. The rut type activity seems to end in mid January. The breeder we lost last year was reintroduced to buck fawns in Mid April and dropped dead first week of May. No indication of any problems prior. We do top dress our feed with a supplement Mass XL out of Plaska industries in Texas. We give that top dressed feed to all our bucks so l doubt that it is the problem. Stroke? Heart Attack? Just terrible bad luck for sure.

Higher levels of testosterone give them the lowest immunity. High levels of testosterone also means they are the most suceptable to capture myopathy.

I never remove my bucks from the does and have not lost a breeder in 7 years.

Do you tranquilize to move?