I shot a big doe shortly before quitting time. She appears in good health. She is not thin, appears to be well fed. No hair/coat issues, no lumps, bumps, wounds or anything of the like.
When I split her sternum, the lungs had TONS of very fibrous connective tissue. Not the omentum....like spider-webby stuff all over the lungs, top to bottom, connecting to the ribs. It reminds me a lot of the connective tissue between the hide and the muscle....and it was not slippery/wet-feeling like most tissue inside the chest.
I didn't see anything else abnormal about the deer, but I've killed over 80 of these critters and don't ever remember seeing one look like this inside.
The past several years we've gotten a few deer that have had the lungs attached to the inside of the ribcage. I've heard this is likely pneumonia but it's nothing like what you're describing.
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