Actual letter from
someone who farms, He writes well and has
tried this:
I had this idea that I could rope a deer,
put it in a stall, feed it up on corn for
a couple of weeks, then eat it. The first step in this
adventure was getting a deer. they are
easy as finding rabbits, I figured
that, since they congregate at my cattle
feeder and do not seem to have much fear
of me when we are there (a bold one will
sometimes come right up and sniff at the
bags of feed while I am in the back of the
truck not 4 feet away), Hey sweet as a
lop, it should not be
difficult to rope one, get up to it and
toss a bag over its head (to calm it down)
then hog tie it and transport it home.
I filled the cattle feeder then hid down at the end with my rope. The
cattle, having seen the roping thing
before, stayed well back. They were not
having any of it. After about 20 minutes,
my deer showed up-- 3 of them. I picked
out a likely looking one, stepped out from
the end of the feeder, and threw my rope.
The deer just stood there and stared at
me. I wrapped the rope around my waist and
twisted the end so I would have a good
hold.
The deer still just stood and stared at me, but you could tell it was
mildly concerned about the whole rope
situation. I took a step towards it, it
took a step away. I put a little tension
on the rope .., and then received an
education. The first thing that I learned
is that, while a deer may just stand there
looking at you funny while you rope it,
they are spurred to action when you start
pulling on that rope.
That deer EXPLODED. The second thing I learned is that pound for pound, a
deer is a LOT stronger than a cow or a
colt. A cow or a colt in that weight range
I could fight down with a rope and with
some dignity. A deer-- no chance.
That thing ran and
bucked and twisted and pulled. There was
no controlling it and certainly no getting
close to it. As it jerked me off my feet
and started dragging me across the ground,
it occurred to me that having a deer on a
rope was not nearly as good an idea as I
had originally imagined. The only upside
is that they do not have as much stamina
as many other animals.
A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as quick to jerk me
off my feet and drag me when I managed to
get up. It took me a few minutes to
realize this, since I was mostly blinded
by the blood flowing out of the big gash
in my head. At that point, I had lost my
taste for corn-fed venison. I just wanted
to get that devil creature off the end of
that rope.
I figured if I just let it go with the rope hanging around its neck, it
would likely die slow and painfully
somewhere. At the time, there was no love
at all between me and that deer. At that
moment, I hated the thing, and I would
venture a guess that the feeling was
mutual.
> Despite the gash in my head and the
several large knots where I had cleverly
arrested the deer's momentum by bracing my
head against various large rocks as it
dragged me across the ground, I could
still think clearly enough to recognize
that there was a small chance that I
shared some tiny amount of responsibility
for the situation we were in. I didn't
want the deer to have to suffer a slow
death, so I managed to get it lined back
up in between my truck and the feeder - a
little trap I had set before hand...kind
of like a squeeze chute. I got it to back
in there and I started moving up so I
could get my rope back.
Did you know that deer bite?
They do! I never in a million years would have thought that a deer would
bite somebody, so I was very surprised
when ... I reached up there to grab that
rope and the deer grabbed hold of my
wrist. Now, when a deer bites you, it is
not like being bit by a horse where they
just bite you and then let go. A deer
bites you and shakes its head--almost like
a pit bull.. They bite HARD and it hurts.
The proper thing to do when a deer bites you is probably to freeze and
draw back slowly. I tried screaming and
shaking instead. My method was
ineffective.
> It seems like the deer was biting and
shaking for several minutes, but it was
likely only several seconds. I, being
smarter than a deer (though you may be
questioning that claim by now), tricked
it. While I kept it busy tearing the
tendons out of my right arm, I reached up
with my left hand and pulled that rope
loose.
That was when I got
my final lesson in deer behavior for the
day.
Deer will strike at you with their front feet. They rear right up on their
back feet and strike right about head and
shoulder level, and their hooves are
surprisingly sharp. I learned a long time
ago that, when an animal --like a horse
--strikes at you with their hooves and you
can't get away easily, the best thing to
do is try to make a loud noise and make an
aggressive move towards the animal. This
will usually cause them to back down a bit
so you can escape.
This was not a horse.. This was a deer, so obviously, such trickery would
not work. In the course of a millisecond,
I devised a different strategy. I screamed
like a woman and tried to turn and run.
The reason I had always been told NOT to
try to turn and run from a horse that paws
at you is that there is a good chance that
it will hit you in the back of the head.
Deer may not be so different from horses
after all, besides being twice as strong
and 3 times as evil, because the second I
turned to run, it hit me right in the back
of the head and knocked me down.
Now, when a deer paws at you and knocks you down, it does not immediately
leave. I suspect it does not recognize
that the danger has passed. What they do
instead is paw your back and jump up and
down on you while you are laying there
crying like a little girl and covering
your head.
I finally managed to crawl under the truck and the deer went away. So now
I know why when people go deer hunting
they bring a bow or rifle with a scope to
sort of even the odds...
All these events are true so help me God... An Educated, Bruised and
Bleeding Rancher......
who now is going to raise Rabbits.
