When a female white-tailed deer was found stumbling and convulsing in a Toronto cemetery on June 7, 2025, wildlife officials suspected poisoning or disease. The postmortem examination, however, revealed something far more unusual. The pregnant deer had died from hardware disease, a condition rarely seen in wild deer.
Experts at the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative (CWHC) discovered the doe had a large abscess between her stomach and liver. When they examined it closely, they found a thin nail, three- to five-centimetres long, had punctured the wall of her reticulum — a chamber in a deer’s stomach. Several other nails were also found. Based on the size and appearance of the infection, pathologists believe the doe had been living with this condition for several weeks. The stress of labour likely triggered her death.
Hardware disease, technically known as traumatic reticuloperitonitis, occurs when animals accidentally ingest sharp metal objects that become lodged in the reticulum, the second chamber of the stomach. It is commonly seen in cattle, which use their tongues to sweep grass into their mouths in large mouthfuls, easily scooping up small metal objects in the process. The weight and shape of these objects cause them to settle in the reticulum rather than passing through the digestive system. Contractions during digestion can force sharp objects to puncture the stomach wall, triggering severe infections that often form an abscess.
While hardware disease is well-documented in livestock, cases in wild white-tailed deer are extremely rare.
To report sick or dead wildlife, use the CWHC’s online tool:
cwhc.wildlifesubmissions.org
Originally published in the Jan.-Feb. 2026 issue of Ontario Out of Doors
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