yeah...but it's not 100% vet
there are always risks.
Secondly.....I'm not sure....but Princess L may want it for raw purposes
oh, I don't disagree, I just like deer meat too much. I don't think the risk is great enough to warrant not eating it if you really like it. Just make sure its cooked.
And I wouldn't feed it raw. The thing is a deer with lyme disease should have many of the symptoms that other animals with the disease have--it'd obviously be one that wouldn't be good for human consumption. The person doing the butchering should have enough wherewith all to recognize that.
Remember the life cycle of lyme disease isn't really a simple one. There are key componants to the Lyme disease triangle: the deer tick, the white-footed deer mouse (in the Eastern US) and the white-tail deer. In the spring, hibernating female deer ticks start to become active when the weather warms. Eggs are deposited in the leaf litter on the ground. A short time later a deer tick larva hatches from the egg. A larva cannot carry the disease (i.e., it cannot be passed from infected adult female to egg to larva). The new larva must find a mammal to feed on or it will die. The most likely foodsources are small mammals such as mice, squirrels, etc. If the small mammal is carrying the bacterial disease it is passed on to the deer tick larva. This is where the white footed deer mouse is so importnat becaus ethis is a major source of lyme disease infection for ticks.
After the larva has fed successfully, it drops off the mammal, molts and turns into a nymph. The deer tick will remain a nymph throughout the summer. Meanwhile, if it has been infected with Lyme disease, the bacteria will begin to multiply within the body of the host (carrier) deer tick nymph. The nymph will overwinter until the following spring. By spring the nymph must get another blood meal or it will starve. This is the time that an infected deer tick is most likely to give the disease to a human or a dog or any other mammal. Remember in a human, infected deer tick nymph must feed for at least 24 hours to transfer enough bacteria to cause an infection. This is very important to remember because simply removing ticks from yourself and your dog after going out into the woods or using a good flea and tick preventative will virtually eliminate the risk of infection with lyme disease.
Each nymph will feed only once. After it feeds, it molts and turns into the adult form in mid to late summer. The adult deer tick needs a blood meal in order to mate and manufacture eggs. The most likely host for deer tick adults is the white-tailed deer. This is the primary association with deer that we think of with lyme disease. As you can see the risk of deer getting the organism is actually relatively low.
