My brother worked with an engineer in Tennessee who kept a whitetail buck as a pet. He did get a permit for it after rescuing the baby deer from its mother’s corpse on the side of a road.
Had it a few years- every year the suited it up in an orange hunting vest during hunting season.
It knew how to open their screen door by flipping it opem with its antlers; loved ice cream cones and just hanging out with people like a big dog.
They did have to neuter it in its second or third year because it was getting too worked up during the rut and they didn’t want it to get hurt trying to get loose and run after wild does.
It’s antlers fell off shortly after getting neutered... they regrew the next year [but not as big as before] but it remained a big lovable mush bag... until one day they returned home to find blood in the pen.
Then they heard word that their neighbor had been down to the checkin station with a super fat deer.
They looked and found a poorly obscured trail leading towards their neighbor’s house and a gutpile along the trail where it wasn’t visible from their property.
Neighbor’s barn burned mysteriously with all his tractors and ATVs inside within the week.
Who knew gutpiles were flammable?
I’d have donated a match.
We made the mistake of calling on an animal rescue organization for an orphaned baby rabbit. The woman said she’d be happy to kill it for us. She said the moment I put it on the hood of her vehicle, it was in her possession and hers to do with as needed. I came this close to punching her. I grabbed the cage and told her what for. Never again.
We used to drive by a place in Idaho that more often than not had a big buck on the front porch, often laying on a couch on it with its feet sticking out watching traffic.
Sounds like that farmer should a
have done better, servicing the wiring on those tractors!