I have several deer in my herd that have horrible lesions/sores/scars on the tops of their necks. I can't come up with anything that would cause this insofar as a disease which was my first concern. The only thing I could come up with is damage/sores/infections from ticks. the top of the neck/withers is one region that a deer can't reach to get ticks off. Some also have a lot of the same type of damage on their ears which is kinda what led me to this assumption. anyone have any other thoughts or speculations as to what might cause this?
I would say most likely ticks. Deer cannot get to that area of the back of their neck or their ear tips which is where they most often show up in trail cam pics.
I'd contact the DNR just to be safe and to stop the curiosity. They don't look in otherwise poor health and most of the diseases that cause similar symptoms hit fawns first or primarily.
I'm thinkin it deer ticks too, it's kinda the only spot on them that they can't reach with there legs or teeth so the ticks get on and hang on. I have a few with the same thing here in southern KS
here is what the ODWC big game biologist said: You could have one or two things going on here because of the resolution it is hard to tell exactly. Since it is on a doe and a buck we know it is affecting different deer. It is possible they have a cutaneous fibroma which is a fancy way of saying a large wart on their skin. If the deer are using the same crossing and the infected deer has cut open the fibroma it is possible the fence is inoculating the other deer going through in the same location. If I were to make a wild guess I would say that the doe and the small buck are likely related she is probably his mother from last year. Another possibility is like you said it is ticks, it is just that the fence they are passing through they are rubbing the hair off in the same spot and that makes is easy for ticks to attach to that exposed area. The fibroma is like I mentioned a wart and will heal overtime it is not highly contagious it will likely affect only the deer using the same crossing area if that is the case. It is NOT transmissible to humans and the only concern for eating a deer with one would be if the deer has a secondary infection in the tissue around the site caused by bacteria and that can be trimmed away. You mentioned EHD and CWD and I thought I would take the opportunity to provide some information on those as well. Chronic wasting disease has NOT been found in wild Oklahoma deer. It does not exhibit any outward symptoms in deer until they are clinical i.e. about to succumb to the disease. We tested 33 animals this spring for it as part of our herd health program and it was not detected in any of those deer. (GOOD NEWS!) As for EHD, it has been known to occur in Oklahoma for about 50 years, this is epizootic hemorhagic disease and it is caused by a virus. The virus is carried by a midge (small fly) that breeds in soupy muddy water. Deer with the disease again do not show any outward symptoms until they are clinical. At which point they succumb within 24 to 48 hours. Unfortunately because the midge cycle is hard to predict and rain fall is hard to predict it is hard to predict an EHD outbreak. It usually is on a 3-5 year cycle and the last real outbreak that made the news and all the hunting shows was in 2012. It did affect a large portion of eastern Oklahoma and it certainly had an affect on our deer herd. However, it did not decimate our herds like other states further north that were formerly naive to the disease. Awesome shot of the twins! Good to see they are doing well and the doe looks healthy as well. With all the rain we have been having the deer should be in great shape this fall. /he doesn't know...
it was a nice, lengthy reply and unexpected really, especially since I am not a member of his specific ODWC program, but he was the only big game biologist I could find on the ODWC's website with a published email address. the fellow that responded is one of the big game biologists for the ODWC's Deer Management Assistance Program Wildlife and Land Management
