CWD Peculiar liver

Philwilk

Well-Known Member
I shot a Chinese Water Deer doe a couple of days ago. The animal looked perfectly healthy in life and was eating when I shot it. The only strange thing about the gralloch was that one 'lobe' of the liver had a different colour, size and texture to the 'main lobe'.

The smaller 'lobe' was hard, pale in colour and when slit with a knife the internal texture was 'gritty'.

The main 'lobe' looked and felt perfectly normal and when incised there was no evidence of liver fluke.

Can't find any references to this condition on the net so anybody got any ideas?

Phil
 
Gritty texture of liver tissue is due to calcification. This results when liver cells are damaged, but as it takes a long time the calcium to become laid down, the damage to your animal's liver would have occurred quite a time ago. If it was due to fluke the calcification is centered around the vessels. It can be due to infection, trauma or a tumour (the latter unlikely from the way you describe it). Calcification and associated fibrosis (scarring) will make the lobe look pale. My guess is she possibly got a knock at some stage.

Dama
 
Thanks for that Dama, sounds like a very plausible reason and scientific explanation to me. I had mentioned this to one of my stalking friends and, although he had never witnessed anything like this liver over donkeys years of stalking, he also suggested that the doe might have suffered a knock at some stage in her life.

Phil
 
Dama is on the right lines I'd say. Calcification is mostly due to long standing damage. If she was young I'd add possible infection when a kid.
 
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