Haven't Seen It Come Up In A While

[Mike Belt]

Any one of you deer gut searchers found a madstone?

 

[Winchester]

No but admittedly only check certain deers stomachs.

 

[pockets]

Don't think I've seen one. what does one look like?

 

[ROUGH COUNTRY HUNTER]

Nope

 

[SBS]

What is a madstone? I've never heard of that.

I assume its when a buck gets mad about being hunted and uses his antlers to chunk big rocks at you. Obviously, that's happened to me several times but I thought they were called "anger-rocks".

But seriously what are they?

 

[Mike Belt]

A madstone, known as bezoar stones, resembles a rock or marble and are concretions of mineral salts combined with hair or fibers. Most are smooth and rounded ranging in size from a marble to an orange. They're occasionally found in the stomachs of livestock as well as in whitetail deer but those from the deer were deemed more potent. Madstones form from calcium deposits similar to the way an oyster forms a pearl. Calcium clings to a foreign material then more calcium is added in layers. Cut through one and you'll find concentric rings like those in a tree. Old timers in the 1800s believed madstones held healing powers for rabies, snakebites, spider bites, and the like. The stone was placed in warm milk and then applied to the wound. If it didn't adhere it was thought they didn't have the virus. To do any good it had to stick and begin drawing out the poison. After it had drawn it's limit it dropped off and was again bathed in warm milk. The milk supposedly turned green from the madstone releasing the poison and at that point, it could be used again. They were considered highly valuable.

I have 1 I found in the stomach of a deer I killed some 20 years back. Mine is whitish, round like a marble, and between a quarter and half dollar size.

 

[Pinwheeled]

Well I'll be danged. Learn something new everyday


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[TraumaSlave]

Not willing to dig thru that haystack.

 

[SBS]

That's pretty cool. Now I'm gonna have to start checking out the gross stinky stuff.
How rare are They? I know you said you've found only one but have you always checked for them?

 

[Mike Belt]

At one point I always checked the stomach contents of every deer I killed to see if I could determine exactly what most were feeding on at any point in the season. That's when I found my madstone. This sometimes lead to deciding on a particular hunting location. I still do occasionally but not near as often. I really don't know how rare they might be. They aren't uncommon but I wouldn't suspect they are found in a high percentage of the deer killed. I also suspect that most hunters avoid cutting into the stomachs of the deer they kill or you might hear of more being found.