EHD...Death runs in the family tree ?

Wayne

It might just be true. Have lost 5 deer to ehd this year. Two bucks and 3 does. The two buck were related and two of the does were mother daughter.

This is interesting. The oldest buck was a triplet. His triplet brother died on a farm 20 miles away. This was the only animal from that herd that died. His triplet sister died on a farm 20 miles away the other direction. One of 3 deer on that farm. So all three triplets died with 48 hrs. Of getting sick.

Now the other buck that died on my farm was a son of the triplet doe, and he died within 48 hrs also. So that entire genetic line out of the original mother to the triplets is dead on three farms.

We have lost over 30 deer this year and have been noticing that certain blood lines die within days no matter what I did while some lasted 6 or 7 days with treatment but unfortunatley died, and yet other lines were able to recover. Matt since you work with pin oak I thought I would mention that a doe I got from Lavern and Phillip years ago was a surviver and all but one of her direct offspring recovered. I sold a doe out of her and checked on his farm and while he also experienced EHD her doe from that line was fine. Makes me wonder if good immunity genes should be as important as width and tine length. Rick

I been saying it for a while now,guess everybody agrees. It will be funny Rick, who will be first one with balls at auction to say the animal for sale was confirmed EHD with full recovery!LMAO

This thread has sparked interest in alot of folks. The idea of breeding animals for superior health genetics instead of antler characteristics may very well be the way to go into the future. I dont know. I do wounder if too much line breeding may play a part in suppressing the immune system. It may take some time, but follow your linage closely and see if there is a corrilation. Maybe the introduction of "new" blood will help some. Just a thought from a deer farmer with 12 months experience.

mulberry river whitetails said:

This thread has sparked interest in alot of folks. The idea of breeding animals for superior health genetics instead of antler characteristics may very well be the way to go into the future. I dont know. I do wounder if too much line breeding may play a part in suppressing the immune system. It may take some time, but follow your linage closely and see if there is a corrilation. Maybe the introduction of "new" blood will help some. Just a thought from a deer farmer with 12 months experience.

Click to expand...

Viruses are also following evotutionary theory.

Who will win this race? Deer farmers or the virus?



Sharkey

Keep digging for info. Everyones information is important to try survive this crazy virus. Good work Wayne. Still praying and thinking of all deer farmers.

Cathy Brumitt

On a different note If that is the case the wild heard in southern Ohio must be very closely related because a buddy of mine owns 80 acres and they found 13 carcassas along the creek on there property and to other farms. Haven,'t witnessed it this is just what he told me.

I do think there is something to the family tree. I have some doe's have had no problem's, same with there fawn's. But if I have a doe get sick you can bet her fawn will as well. If I save the doe then it seem's I can save the fawn . If the doe is lost I will lose the fawn's as well. I have decided to keep all that survive this year and rebuild from those doe's even if they are not the genetic's I want. It dose me no good to buy a good doe that just die's along with her fawn's the first year they are here.

Has anybody read this? http://dnr.wi.gov/news/Weekly/Article_Lookup.asp?id=2314

There is a definite correlation. I started 5 years ago with 4 northern does and 12 southern deer. I live in the deep South where the no-see-ums or a common occurence. The first August, within a 3 day period all the northern deer died and not one southern and they were in the same pen and I have not lost one to ehd since then. This is due to the fact that the southern deer have developed some resistance from frequent exposure. This exposure has killed off most of the southern lines without resistance. The reason southern deer have some resistance is exposure, exposure, exposure. How else would southern deer have devloped any resistance.

I made this same argument 3 years ago and was jumped all over. Here in South Alabama a few farmers are successfully raising northern deer but it is a very few. If the average nothern deer could live here they would have already migrated here and ran the smaller southern deer off into the gulf. I am having some success with artificially breeding a southern doe with northern genetics because they get their resistance from the southern doe. If the southern deer had not built up a resistance they would not exist because we have multiple outbreaks of midges EVERY year. You can't go outside for them here right now, they will eat you alive.

I do not vacinate for ehd or spray for midges because I do not want to raise a herd that has no resistance. I only breed does that can survive otherwise who is going to vacinate them and their offspring in a preserve. Breed your deer that survive in the same pen where others died and I believe you will build a more resistant herd.

If it was not for midges there probably would not be any southern deer left. The northerns would have bred the southern blood out by now. I have no science to back this up, just my opinion based on my experience.

Wayne

It is a genetic trait.I would liken it to the stress gene in hogs.Hogs being a primary livestock animal have had their genome mapped.in the process have had the stress gene identified if you look at hog semen catologues it will tell if the sire has the stress gene or not.I hope in the future we can have cervid genome mapped.It will show what strains are less seceptable (sp?)than others to EHD.It would cut down on a lot of the spraying and sorrow that we are experiencing.I read an article the other day that quail unlimited paid for the research to have the bobwhite genome mapped to determine strains of birds less seceptable to coccida the main culprit to quail mortality.Maybe thats where we need to concentrate our efforts instead of chasing our tails w/ all the vaccines and chemicals that are average at best.

We are new to all of this I dont have an opinion as to the accuracy of the family line and ehd. This is however what we have seen on our little place this year. We had 5 die this year from ehd, 3 does and 2 bucks. None of the does were related, the yearling buck was not related either, and the little buck fawn was one of twins born to the first doe we lost.

One doe was 14 years old and I believe died simply because she was old (she did have the symptoms of ehd as well) as she had been exposed to ehd before. The other 2 does were our moms and neither seemed fully "recovered" from birthing (one died 4 weeks after birth and the other 8 weeks after). The little buck fawn lost his mom at 4 weeks old and would not take to the bottle so I assume he was lacking from not having the milk for as long as he should have.

All 3 of the other fawns are thriving!!! The sires to all are thriving!!! The sister to the first doe lost is thriving!!!

That said the deer we began this venture with and were not born on our place came from a farm that has lost 40% of their herd this year. Wish this would be solved soon, it is awful to watch!!!

We rarely ever post on here, but the information that we have gained from this site over the past few years has been extremely helpful to us.

That being said; we will chime in on this post. We have lost four deer in the past month to EHD. Since we only had 9 to start with; it’s a hard hit.

Our first to go was our big buck, and in all honesty; he was the biggest healthiest deer we had. Next to go was our best buck fawn. Then we lost our oldest doe (only 4 yrs old) and shortly after that we lost her buck fawn.

We have left: a 2 year old buck out of the big buck and doe that died. Two doe fawns; one is out of the buck and doe that died.

We have a yearling doe that survived the disease. She is out of the buck and doe that died.

Then we have a two year old doe that is sick right now. She is the mother to the first buck fawn that died and one of the remaining doe fawns. If we lose this doe, everyone we have left will be full or half brother and sisters.

I do have a question, what is the longest anyone has had an animal be sick with this before dying? This doe has been sick for a week now, and seems to have had a worse case of it than our yearling doe did, but she’s still alive……………do we dare start to hope that she might make it?



Ed & Sal

Most likely she will live if she has survived a week already, give her some antibiotics, something like draxin. I believe that the ones that survive will have a good chance of passing the resistance on to the offspring. I also believe the immunities come from the doe.

That mapping sounds great. We are spending a ton of $$$$ spraying and then there is the meds!!

Ed & Sal,

We had a yearling buck live almost 2 1/2 weeks and seem to be recovering and then some kind of wierd nerve thing happened and within hours of seeing him favor his leg he was completely paralized. We had to put him down after all he went through. Not sure if this was a result of the ehd or a secondary illness that hit when he was too weak to fight it. Praying yours makes it!!!!

Thanks, it's day 8 and she's still alive. She has been living on wheat bread and water and what she browses on. Haven't seen her at the feed dish at all. Today she seemed to have more of an appetite and ate some pieces of apple and was looking for more. So we cut up half an apple and she ate the whole thing.

Sorry about your buck. That would be a bummer to have him make it that far and then lose him.

Try filling a big (60 cc ) syringe with applesauce mixed with proboitcs, I turned one around giving them 2-3 syringes full at least 2 time a day and after awhile she started eating regular feed. She was a tame one though and would take the syringe without any problem