Deer licks

[shakey jake]

You’ll need to watch some old Vietnam flix, there’s a scene where after a prostitute is done with each client. She reaches a rag to wipe herself; pulling the rag rings a bell, indicating she’s ready for the next. Hence, ring the bell.

I’m not from Essex

sorry for such an offensive accusation!

 

[BenBhoy]

wet wipe?

Ohh life's little luxuries

 

[jb1]

Another thought regarding the spread of disease in Deer compared to cattle and sheep,their life expectancy is usually longer. Beef cattle are slaughtered at around 18 months and sheep are slaughtered at 4 months to 12 months.

 

[Tim.243]

You’ll need to watch some old Vietnam flix, there’s a scene where after a prostitute is done with each client. She reaches a rag to wipe herself; pulling the rag rings a bell, indicating she’s ready for the next. Hence, ring the bell.

I’m not from Essex

Hey Peter you still taking in peoples stocks and not sending them back

 

[TringSaint]

Another thought regarding the spread of disease in Deer compared to cattle and sheep,their life expectancy is usually longer. Beef cattle are slaughtered at around 18 months and sheep are slaughtered at 4 months to 12 months.

Urrrr we have sheep that are over 10 years old and they are happy munching on mineral licks.
They are pet Valais now but very healthy

 

[willie_gunn]

I’ve put salt licks out in the past, and very successful they were too in terms of bringing in both roe and muntjac. I have lots of nice trail cam photos showing deer using them. We were using them to attract deer to glades and clearings in the woods, with the intention to shoot the deer on the way to/from the salt licks.

In reality we found we shot very few deer near the salt licks - there was a tendency, unconscious or otherwise, to want to get to a spot near the licks, thereby bumping other deer on the way - and once bTB in muntjac turned up on the ground we stopped using them, for all the reasons @Buchan has mentioned.

Part of our ground includes a known bTB hotspot. We can never be 100% sure where the deer first picked up bTB, but the blocks put out for the sheep and cattle were certainly a possibility. It was also clear that deliberately putting out something that would encourage deer to concentrate in one area and potentially transfer germs from and between possibly infected deer was simply not worth the risk, however limited that risk might be. With farmers minded to want deer eradicated anyway, why do something that might provoke them?

Of course we also had a large game shoot running on the same ground, so there were already dozens of feeders out there effectively serving prime steak to the deer 24x7, and bTB may well have been spread by the deer using those, which was a discussion I had with the chief vet of the BDS last year. Since the shoot has gone, we’ve not had any recurrence of bTB - though that might well reflect coincidence rather than causation.

If bTB does turn up again - and we all have our fingers crossed that it doesn’t - at least we know that two of the potential means of transmission have already been removed, so can start looking into other things.

 

[Tim.243]

I’ve put salt licks out in the past, and very successful they were too in terms of bringing in both roe and muntjac. I have lots of nice trail cam photos showing deer using them. We were using them to attract deer to glades and clearings in the woods, with the intention to shoot the deer on the way to/from the salt licks.

In reality we found we shot very few deer near the salt licks - there was a tendency, unconscious or otherwise, to want to get to a spot near the licks, thereby bumping other deer on the way - and once bTB in muntjac turned up on the ground we stopped using them, for all the reasons @Buchan has mentioned.

Part of our ground includes a known bTB hotspot. We can never be 100% sure where the deer first picked up bTB, but the blocks put out for the sheep and cattle were certainly a possibility. It was also clear that deliberately putting out something that would encourage deer to concentrate in one area and potentially transfer germs from and between possibly infected deer was simply not worth the risk, however limited that risk might be. With farmers minded to want deer eradicated anyway, why do something that might provoke them?

Of course we also had a large game shoot running on the same ground, so there were already dozens of feeders out there effectively serving prime steak to the deer 24x7, and bTB may well have been spread by the deer using those, which was a discussion I had with the chief vet of the BDS last year. Since the shoot has gone, we’ve not had any recurrence of bTB - though that might well reflect coincidence rather than causation.

If bTB does turn up again - and we all have our fingers crossed that it doesn’t - at least we know that two of the potential means of transmission have already been removed, so can start looking into other things.

This is fine but not an exact science much like which poor or good head male deer covered a female, you can make it sound like it but in fact there are no guaranties, young badgers like foxes get kicked out then find their own patch so opens up a different area of hazard.
Big deer can cover lots of miles so you will never know where they pick it up from, just like a bird flu free farm then you are condemning all the stock
as you just don't know. I have 3 fallow in the chiller shot out of Essex with a few ticks! None of the last 200 deer I have shot locally have had no ticks.
lots of badgers but no TB
I remember posting about covid testing in deer and @Buchan poo pooed the post until he saw the mark on the letter heading
You boys need to make your mind up.

Is there much difference with the TB in animals to the one found in humans? Can it be passed on or is it.

"Quite what this particular waste of time is supposed to contribute is anyone's guess"

What are the tests for TB in animals?

Fair point, perhaps my response was too short. If they are looking specifically for SARs-CoV-2, that's perhaps understandable as it's been found in white-tailed deer. And if'd I'd been more observant, I'd have seen the APHA logo!

 

[willie_gunn]

This is fine but not an exact science much like which poor or good head male deer covered a female, you can make it sound like it but in fact there are no guaranties, young badgers like foxes get kicked out then find their own patch so opens up a different area of hazard.
Big deer can cover lots of miles so you will never know where they pick it up from, just like a bird flu free farm then you are condemning all the stock
as you just don't know. I have 3 fallow in the chiller shot out of Essex with a few ticks! None of the last 200 deer I have shot locally have had no ticks.
lots of badgers but no TB
I remember posting about covid testing in deer and @Buchan poo pooed the post until he saw the mark on the letter heading
You boys need to make your mind up.

Fair point, perhaps my response was too short. If they are looking specifically for SARs-CoV-2, that's perhaps understandable as it's been found in white-tailed deer. And if'd I'd been more observant, I'd have seen the APHA logo!
View attachment 442550

We are fortunate that the deer population in general is very healthy, and coming across any infection during the gralloch is a positive rarity.

Looking at our own records, over 28 years we've shot 2,615 deer. 28 of those animals had some kind of disease or infection worthy of note, so you are likely to find a healthy deer 99% of the time.

10 of the animals culled were fallow, which we rarely see and - when spotted - are to the far North of the estate, well away from where we have encountered bTB. So it is highly doubtful - though not impossible - that the bTB is being introduced as a result of big deer with large ranges.

We have culled 938 muntjac. Four were tested by APHA and confirmed as being infected with bTB. Three of these were shot within an area of approximately 160 acres, whilst the other was shot just over a mile away as the crow flies (or, in this case, as the muntjac runs). The only one where the specific genotype of bTB is known is that fourth one, which was the same genotype as infected cattle in the established bTB hotspot where the other three were shot.

As you rightly say, we can never know for sure how these muntjac picked up bTB. However we do know that bTB can be spread directly between animals, and indirectly through contaminated feed and water. Minimising the risk of this, by avoiding putting out mineral licks for deer that encourage them to congregate and share bodily fluids, eliminates one potential means of transmission.

If you want to do something different, by all means kick on. No-one has suggested that the practice of putting out mineral licks should be banned, but rather that it does does carry some risk, however small.

 

[Tim.243]

We are fortunate that the deer population in general is very healthy, and coming across any infection during the gralloch is a positive rarity.

Looking at our own records, over 28 years we've shot 2,615 deer. 28 of those animals had some kind of disease or infection worthy of note, so you are likely to find a healthy deer 99% of the time.

10 of the animals culled were fallow, which we rarely see and - when spotted - are to the far North of the estate, well away from where we have encountered bTB. So it is highly doubtful - though not impossible - that the bTB is being introduced as a result of big deer with large ranges.

We have culled 938 muntjac. Four were tested by APHA and confirmed as being infected with bTB. Three of these were shot within an area of approximately 160 acres, whilst the other was shot just over a mile away as the crow flies (or, in this case, as the muntjac runs). The only one where the specific genotype of bTB is known is that fourth one, which was the same genotype as infected cattle in the established bTB hotspot where the other three were shot.

As you rightly say, we can never know for sure how these muntjac picked up bTB. However we do know that bTB can be spread directly between animals, and indirectly through contaminated feed and water. Minimising the risk of this, by avoiding putting out mineral licks for deer that encourage them to congregate and share bodily fluids, eliminates one potential means of transmission.

If you want to do something different, by all means kick on. No-one has suggested that the practice of putting out mineral licks should be banned, but rather that it does does carry some risk, however small.

I object to the rose tinted glasses views that can't tally up the finger pointing from where deer pick up TB from as much as where it will come out next. My findings are from 4 of the deer species with yourself just 2!
If you think it would help then try lobbying the people who sell/buy it all over the UK (good luck with that)

 

[Buchan]

What I am saying is in areas where salt licks/artificial feeding is not used deer still become ill from a number of aliments.
As an example lots of badgers around my ground lots of healthy muntjac/fallow/reds also no artificial feeding so I will take a punt at saying if I found a sick deer (2 muntjac from 400 I have shot) that it was not passed on from a salt lick as they had been previously hit by a car.
What figures are you seeing that you can pass on?

It's an increased risk that's all. A lot of my work is highlighting risk to animal owners, one farmer summing it up, "You charge to tell me how to avoid getting a disease I don't have"
I'm not aware of any work confirming this means of TB spread in the UK. This reference describes the situation in the States: Bovine tuberculosis in Michigan wildlife and livestock - PubMed

 

[Freeforester]

Regional variations apply.

I know of NOWHERE in the highlands of Scotland nor several estates and deer farms in England where the mineral licks I was involved with in selling for over thirty (30) years where illness among deer resulted in them from licking a product which was after all, 99% vacuum salt in composition. Vacuum salt isn’t a great medium for disease transmission, it seems.

I do however know that,

a) the trace elements constituiting the other 1% resulted in the fecundity rate, trophy quality and bodyweights substantially increasing wherever they were used (- even South of the border too), and

b) the deer managers I worked with seems to be sufficiently happy to place repeat orders over time.

Make of this what you wish.

It could of course be contrived that the switch heads all ‘died off’ because of ‘mixing with other deer at feeding stations’ ( a commonplace management tool in many parts, without the downsides warned about here having the risk of manifesting themselves - like EVER), but that is of course not to recognise the potential for cross infection or transmission to be possible; it merely places the risk in context— it appears to be the case that for the last several decades on this side of the Atlantic the risk appears to be at best potential, if not overstated.

Not one single deer manager I was involved with has ever reported to me illness or some outbreak of disease in their stock as a result of Introducing proper trace element supplementation to their herd. For further context, some herds of stags in highland settings live roughly eleven months of the year around their stalker/manager’s environs being fed there, and only head off to the hill for a month or so to procreate. The eleven months that do not spread out, they somehow manage to avoid dying of some imaginary disease or plague, or seem to have done so to date.

The benefits of proper trace element supplementation therefore appear to outweigh the potential disadvantages in deer herds where it has been conducted - here at least - over the last three and a half decades. This is not to ignore the potential risks, but merely to state the real world outcomes over that time period.

YMMV.

 

[kevtherev]

id assume tb, wet environment, badgers and deer. too many animals visiting one point. not sure what others are transmissable

If you are worried about badgers and tb etc then place the licks up off the ground where only deer can access them.
Standard rockie salt licks work well available from most agricultural merchants.

 

[Tim.243]

It's an increased risk that's all. A lot of my work is highlighting risk to animal owners, one farmer summing it up, "You charge to tell me how to avoid getting a disease I don't have"
I'm not aware of any work confirming this means of TB spread in the UK. This reference describes the situation in the States: Bovine tuberculosis in Michigan wildlife and livestock - PubMed

Yes, and like I said to willie gunn
If you think it would help then try lobbying the people who sell/buy it all over the UK as most animal feed/farm equipment stores sell it!
Everything is a risk but you won't find the horsey people or sheep farmers will stop buying it.
Bio-Hazzard I get that however, I shoot a big Turkey farm for a very nice family shot some huge fallow off there when they turn up I get some welding work also shoot the foxes and deer, they have a shoot on the farm, so when Bird flu was strong the owner asked me not to come over as he knows I shoot on a marsh (no problem at all lots of shooting)
Do the maths 9 guns shooting on all different farms in the week 15 beaters and farm family owners!! thankfully no bird flu but as you said

It's an increased risk

 

[shakey jake]

If you are worried about badgers and tb etc then place the licks up off the ground where only deer can access them.
Standard rockie salt licks work well available from most agricultural merchants.

one of the previous comments mentioned placing in a v to allow the salt to run down the trunk.
i understand the risk my be low of cross infection, i just cant see the need to have that extra risk.
animals get ill with out any help from us.
the earlier comment about the highlands is interesting in two ways to me.
if its only red deer and they stay close effectivly its a closed enviroment.
do other animals visit the salt licks?
the op isnt a million miles from me, if his deer numbers are similar to numbers here, i think concentrating them could have bad consequences.
it may not happen quickly but if CWD or munties become infected witj BTb
killing them wont hold the same enjoyment

 

[Freeforester]

one of the previous comments mentioned placing in a v to allow the salt to run down the trunk.
i understand the risk my be low of cross infection, i just cant see the need to have that extra risk.
animals get ill with out any help from us.
the earlier comment about the highlands is interesting in two ways to me.
if its only red deer and they stay close effectivly its a closed enviroment.
do other animals visit the salt licks?
the op isnt a million miles from me, if his deer numbers are similar to numbers here, i think concentrating them could have bad consequences.
it may not happen quickly but if CWD or munties become infected witj BTb
killing them wont hold the same enjoyment

I also supplied to deer parks with closed herds of fallow, and other places where the species targeted were sika, and roe respectively.

Edit: most I supplied set them out on posts with a sawn cross cut atop, with wooden peg at the j resection point for securing the block.

 

[shakey jake]

I also supplied to deer parks with closed herds of fallow, and other places where the species targeted were sika, and roe respectively.

that is what i was thinking, closed herds.
not muntjac, CWD, roe, fallow, badgers and foxs all having a go.
i think encouraging multiple species can only increase the risk, if we dont need to why do it?

 

[Tim.243]

I also supplied to deer parks with closed herds of fallow, and other places where the species targeted were sika, and roe respectively.

Edit: most I supplied set them out on posts with a sawn cross cut atop, with wooden peg at the j resection point for securing the block.

You will have to try and understand Shakey Jake as he is trying his best

 

[kevtherev]

If you get the rockies with the hole through the middle you can hang them from a tree or post if required.
Not connected but I regularly see badgers having a lick from our suckler cow buckets out on the hill ideally they need placing up of the ground in a tall trough.

 

[Freeforester]

If you get the rockies with the hole through the middle you can hang them from a tree or post if required.
Not connected but I regularly see badgers having a lick from our suckler cow buckets out on the hill ideally they need placing up of the ground in a tall trough.

Hanging from a rope usually results in the rope taking the rain or atmospheric moisture down to the block where the typically 6 or 10kg block soon gets burned through, resulting in two bits of a broken block. Resting the block on a roughly 6-8” diameter post or stump with saw cuts to direct the liquor escaping from the block and trickling down said post/stump (usually about shoulder height of the intended recipient species) makes for a longer lasting block. This being said, rock salt blocks do not last as long in the open as those made from vacuum salt, the former tend to have miniature cracks and fissures in them which the moisture exploit. The crucial part however is the trace element content and its make up, so that one or other trace element does not negate or lock out the uptake of others; it’s a bio-chemistry thing.

 

[Ruby Tuesday 2]

I’ve put blocks and branded buckets like lifeline in with my park deer, they definitely like them and this dry summer have consumed them quickly, whether it has any long term benefit I couldn’t say. I’ve also walked into a lamp post recently so I deem myself qualified to answer.