• Cid Vicious@sh.itjust.works
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    6 days ago

    It’s possible that this is chronic wasting disease or something, but I’m more inclined to think it’s bullshit.

    • noride@lemm.ee
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      6 days ago

      Prion diseases like that make deer do allllll sorts of kooky shit, man. Definitely possible.

    • edric@lemm.ee
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      6 days ago

      Yeah, if its brains were everywhere, it wouldn’t be able to walk to the river let alone on two legs.

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6 days ago

        Animals, and people, can and have continued to be alive and… somewhat, or even mostly functional… with portions of their brains obliterated or removed.

        Go look up Phinneas Gage, or the history of lobotomies and brain surgeries.

        Now, this person could be describing bloody chunks of the skull and skin and fur, but it is not strictly impossible that the deer could have actually managed to loose chunks of its actual brain, and still remain capable enough to keep functioning…

        … for a while, at least. If it did really cave in its own skull, it would almost certainly die from cranial hemmoraghing soon afterward, if not that, infections.

          • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            6 days ago

            Ah yes, I heard about that one when I was a kid, forgot to mention it!

            Damn headless chicken stayed alive for weeks… months I think?

            It would walk around attempting to peck at things with a head it didn’t have… they used a little dropper to squirt some mushed up food … directly into its throat…

            …and it actually died because one day it choked during this kind of feeding session, concievably it could have lived longer had that not happened.

            Or at least thats the ‘death account’ I remeber my grandpa telling me, apparently there are multiple stories as to what exactly cause Mike to pass on.

        • lath@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          Theoretically, one can move around with only the cerebellum remaining intact. For a short while at least.

          • Cid Vicious@sh.itjust.works
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            6 days ago

            Yeah, that is why I left a little wiggle room in my statements. But coordinated movements when the cranial cavity is so damaged that chunks of brain are spilling out? A deer’s brain isn’t even very large. There’s hardly chunks to be had there. I dunno there’s some chance that the deer was already dead and this is just some sort of postmortem spasms. But I am just doubtful over the whole thing as written.

            • lath@lemmy.world
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              6 days ago

              I’m sure there’s a set of circumstances that can make it possible, but yeah, people generally like to embellish our stories.

        • i_dont_want_to
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          6 days ago

          Fair enough. If I witnessed a deer bashing its own brains out, I would definitely be so fucking freaked out my memory would be doing wild shit about the encounter, too. Filling in details that weren’t there, not noticing that only part of the brain fell out, just completely unreliable.

      • JustOneMoreCat
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        5 days ago

        Thing is people really don’t know what brains look like or the force that would be required to crack the skull. I don’t think a deer is capable of it.

        BUT it very well could have cracked an antler and busted open a good wound and left a bloody mess that you might assume were brains.

        But also this sounds like total BS.

  • rivan@lemm.ee
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    5 days ago

    This is normal deer behavior. It only gets sketchy if they talk to you.