Brown Slime

[Yoder]

I was butchering a buck yesterday and I came across something strange. When I pulled the skin off, the one back leg was stained a light brown color from about the knee to the shin. You know the clear slimy stuff that's between the muscles? That had a brown tint to it. I have never seen anything like it. It didn't smell bad, and the deer looked healthy. I should have taken a picture. I wound up just cutting above it and threw the part in question away. I didn't see any kind of injury. The rest of the deer was totally normal. Even the bones and muscle of the affected area looked normal. Any idea what that was?

 

[dr.mooseknuckles]

Could have been a healing trauma to the fascia (connective, clear tissue you're referring to). There may have been some mild bleeding and the immune system was working on clearing up. Hemosiderophages are a type of tissue macrophage that specialize in cleaning up old red blood cells.

Just a wild guess, but if there was no odor or generalized tissue swelling in the area, that'd be my best guess.

 

[Billogna]

Sounds like that deer caught a case of AVB.

 

[Yoder]

Could have been a healing trauma to the fascia (connective, clear tissue you're referring to). There may have been some mild bleeding and the immune system was working on clearing up. Hemosiderophages are a type of tissue macrophage that specialize in cleaning up old red blood cells.

Just a wild guess, but if there was no odor or generalized tissue swelling in the area, that'd be my best guess.

I kind of thought it might be old blood. The coloration looked almost like someone spilled coffee on it. Everything looked fine except for that. I cut apart all the joints and there was nothing strange, all of the muscle tissue looked normal.

 

[dr.mooseknuckles]

Yeah, blood will turn brownish in the tissue after old trauma, part of that being the hemosiderophages. They have a high Iron component from eating up that old hemoglobin.

Funny enough, seen similar after shooting a turkey and it breaking it's own leg from flopping, but in an acute aspect, it's green!

 

[NRA4LIFE]

I'm guessing it was from a healing injury of some sort. They hurt themselves just like we do.

 

[Der Schwabe]

The buck I cut up this year had bleeding under the skin on both rear legs. It looked like they were very recent injuries, possibly from a fight with another buck. Sometimes the winning buck will keep on trying to gore the one that turned to run.