Week 2--Massive Deer Death

Sometimes it is rally changeling to be up here. For example, last week we had a several deer died and all of our deer got diarrhea. And let me tell you 25 deer with diarrhea is not a fun thing. So, the intern coordinator and the internships (me and 3 other girls in their early twenties) were on a mission to figure out what had to the deer. First, we thought it may be a bacteria that causes scoures, a disease found in cervids. The four interns disinfected the entire deer garage and disinfected the deer's enclosures. Also, we started giving the deer antibiotics to fight the bacteria lurking in the deer intestine.


After two days the deer were still sick and two more had died. We brainstormed to see if we could figure out what was wrong with the deer: what it a viral infection, a flat worm parasite, or something we did wrong? Our coordinator ask us when the deer's health started to deterriorate. I said it was right after we bought a new bag of food. That's when we realized that it most be the goat-milk powder we use to make the deer's milk replacement formula. One of the girls checked the label on the bag of formula powder and realized it was a higher concentration then the bag we'd used the week before.


None of us ever considered that the milk was killing the deer. It was the same brand of formula mix as the first mix we used and it was for the same age animal. But this time we bought the 50lb bag instead of the 15lb bag. And the concentration was different. THe 15lb bag requires two cups of water to every cup of powder, whereas; the 50lb bag requires a 3:1 ratio.


Once we realized our mistake we were about to fix it and the deer are going well, but it sucks knowing that if one of us had taken 20 seconds to read the bag that 6 fawns would still be alive.