MANAGING BUCKS IN THE RUT ADVICE FOR SAFETY
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By: Gail Veley • Sponsoed by KALA essica Maloney slipped outside for her normal morning routine of caring for the deer she and her husband owned and loved at Central Kentucky Whitetails. The air was crisp on that chilly October morning in Jeffersonville, Kentucky in 2017. Little did Maloney know as she welcomed the day, that within minutes she would be on her back fighting for her life. It started first by her noticing a water barrel out of place, in the middle of their deer pen where among others, a deer affectionately named Fluffy lived.
Instinctively Maloney grabbed ahold of his antlers to try and push him off. After struggling for three to four feet with little success, Fluffy once again pinned her against the side of the pen. “Thankfully, I had my phone with me,” she said. “We moved about eight more feet and suddenly I’m on the ground and my slip-on shoes are off. He kept trying to pin me and push me. I wrapped my arms around his neck like a choke hold which allowed me to use my other hand to dial the phone. I was pecking with one finger and called my husband.”
“He was fluffy as a fawn and very gentle,” Maloney said. “He was always very gentle. We did bottle feed him, but he was not a breeder buck.” Yet, on that particular morning, Fluffy, a deer she regularly took “selfies” with, turned into a deer she had never known before. “I walked into the pen to get the water barrel and he met me at the gate,” she said. “He pinned me up against the feed through and it startled me. I didn’t know why he was doing that.”
Although always happy to talk to his wife, some mornings Chris her husband was too busy to answer the phone and called her back later. However, that morning he answered his wife’s call. Her phone was no longer in her hand but on the ground beside her, as she desperately needed both arms and hands to fend off the deer’s aggression. “I kept screaming toward the phone ‘Fluffy is trying to kill me! Fluffy is trying to kill me!” she said. Chris immediately called his
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grandfather who lived right down the road and luckily, he was home. Most mornings, he was not. However, he wasn’t feeling well and was still at the house. At this point Maloney, a young tough and stout 5’ 10” 170-pound farm raised girl, was starting to fatigue, her arms aching and losing their usual stamina from pushing back against the relentless buck. She decided instead to push with her legs. Within seconds
