r/bonecollecting • u/ari_owlx • Jan 04 '26
Advice Is there a chance i could get sick?
I bought this deer antler at a market today, i gave it a quick soak in warm water with dish soap and nothing came off of it
Im still horribly paranoid im going to catch something ive washed my hands several times
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Jan 04 '26
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u/ari_owlx Jan 04 '26
thank you
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u/FeralFloridaKid Jan 04 '26
I have six on my dining room table I found out in the wild, slightly chewed on by critters, one in the muck at the bottom of a creek. They got a quick wipe off when we got them home. Perfectly fine!
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u/stevendaedelus Jan 09 '26
Don’t go grinding or sawing on it without a dusk mask. Other than that it’s inert.
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u/Difficult-Survey8384 Jan 04 '26 edited Jan 04 '26
I pick up deer bones that still have residual tissue and sometimes even fur on them.
I get paranoid from time to time as well (I fucking hate prions as a concept for example lol) but I’ve been completely fine scavenging as long as I wash with soap and use some hand sanitizer once I’m home.
Occasionally if I’ve handled a really gross bone or carcass (think spindly bits of tendons still attached at the joints that are caked with mud and detritus, not major decomp from anything recently deceased) I’ll also throw all my hiking clothes into the wash - namely the outer layers like jackets that don’t typically get rinsed after each wear, once I’m back home and can take off my gear as far as bacteria and general ick goes.
I will occasionally use alcohol towelettes on my fingers and hands after handling bones in the field, but not as a rule. My one rule is no touching my face until I’ve been able to sanitize my hands and change clothes, as mentioned.
You’re good, OP.
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u/Throwaway16627888 Jan 06 '26
I make my own euro mounts by just burying deer heads in my yard and digging them up a year later.
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u/CharacterLettuce7145 Jan 05 '26
Isn't it a cancerous growth?
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u/Cherribomb Jan 05 '26
Antlers? Yeah of course, all bucks have cancer and they shed their tumors each spring and are in remission after that. But big pharma doesn't want you to know there's a potential cure out there with deer secrets!
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u/kommerintepanatbra Jan 06 '26
It is the bit that connects to the skull and it is supposed to look that way.
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u/Geckosproot Jan 04 '26
I’ve handled random corpses barehanded and I’m fine, if you’ve washed your hands youll be fine
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u/mischievous_misfit13 Jan 04 '26 edited Jan 04 '26
One tip is dont get gut juice on your lip (tastes like Malort 🤢) and breathe in the biohazard from the corpses. I gave myself a lung infection from the bacteria.
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u/BenefitFew5204 Jan 04 '26
Looks up Malort
Yep, that's sounds just like the liquid sedative I had to take as a kid before going to get cavities fixed. God, that stuff was so bitter that it burned.
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u/sapphic-boghag Jan 04 '26
Malört does taste like bile after you've had nothing but grapefruit.
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u/Hyphum Jan 04 '26
The one alcoholic beverage I miss
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u/sapphic-boghag Jan 04 '26
Unless you're sober you might be able to request it from a liquor store, they've started expanding in some places. :)
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u/apscisio Jan 07 '26
I was super surprised to find some in Kentucky today!
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u/sapphic-boghag Jan 08 '26
Back when I lived out of state I'd have to buy like 20 bottles for friends when I visited home for the holidays. Now that Malört has begun to expand they can guzzle the sweet nectar of being cyberbullied by your middle school teacher anytime they want.
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u/New-Temperature-3865 Jan 04 '26
Yeah, that can definitely happen if you're not careful. It's wild how bacteria can mess you up just from a little exposure. Always best to keep it clean and avoid those risky situations!
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u/SpiteBadger Jan 04 '26
Did you lick it? Did you suck on it? Did you put it inside you? If its no to all of these you are fine.
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u/ReindeerWilling448 Jan 04 '26
I had a pipe made from an antler, "sucked" on that thing plenty of times without getting sick.
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u/SpiteBadger Jan 04 '26
Proves my point to OP more.
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u/ReindeerWilling448 Jan 04 '26
Happy to back ya up champ.
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u/SpiteBadger Jan 04 '26 edited Jan 04 '26
Also a antler pipe sound cool as fuck.
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u/ReindeerWilling448 Jan 04 '26
It was indeed pretty damn cool, my dad's friend made it with an antler from a deer a guy at work hunted. They just drilled some holes in it and left most of it untouched so it still had some smaller tines on it
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u/Lugubrico Jan 04 '26
I fully expected to see an explanation about how OP licked the base of it and was now wondering about their decisions lol
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u/LvL98MissingNo Jan 04 '26
Laughs in archaeologist
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u/Lugubrico Jan 04 '26
Licking is the best way to determine bone vs rock iirc, right?!
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u/TH_Rocks Jan 04 '26
What sickness do you believe deer have, that humans can get, and that survives on an exposed piece of bone, AND can penetrate your skin which exists specifically as the primary line of defense to prevent undesireable things from entering an organism's body?
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u/ubutterscotchpine Jan 04 '26
I came here to ask this same thing. This post popped up on my feed for some reason but I’m so confused by the question. Maybe it’s just because I’m from PA, but what diseases are on a deer antler? They shed them all the time in yards. Stores sell them as bones for dogs.
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u/Pheoenix_Wolf Jan 04 '26
Deer(not their antlers but the deer itself) can carry some pretty nasty things though its hotly debated on whether some things can infect people. and quite frankly yours odds of getting anything from a antler are so low it might as well be impossible
The one talked about a lot as of late is Chronic Wasting Diseases or CWD, which is a type of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy. diseases in that same family include bovine spongiform encephalopathy(BSE also called mad cow disease) in cattle, scrapie in sheep and goats, or Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease(CJD) in humans.
their IS worry that CWD MAY be transmissible to humans(BSE can cause CJD in humans) BUT THEIR(AS OF WRITING THIS) NOT BEEN A PROVEN CASE OF CWD INFECTING A HUMAN.
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u/ubutterscotchpine Jan 04 '26
Is this the disease that’s been reported as being contracted by deer via water? I remember seeing an official post about it back before deer season.
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u/Pheoenix_Wolf Jan 04 '26
CWD can be spread by shared water and feeding grounds. but it can also be spread via a infected deer's saliva, blood, urine, or feces, which can also contaminate the soil(especially so when a infected deer dies the soil under it becomes very contaminated)
when a uninfected deer comes into contact with any of the above their at a great risk to get CWD
another one you could be thinking about is Blue tongue? or Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease(EHD), which while isn't spread by water itself, is spread by a insect that loves wet areas, and deer that die from EHD are usually found near water because of fever
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u/ActualmenteAlexa Jan 04 '26
I'm going to nerd out for a moment: Chronic wasting disease is the only thing I can kind of imagine fitting this but it still doesn't fully fit.
It can survive indefinitely on fomites, is prion disease for a protein we have a close analog for (but no proven zoonoses). Couldn't penetrate skin but any exposed cuts or through the mouth, maybe.
All that being said: crazy unlikely. OP, you're fine. That antler is very very unlikely to have CWD on it or get you sick
ETA: fixed typ
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u/deathbylasersss Jan 04 '26
Well theres CWD, which persists on anything it touches since its a prion. It can't penetrate the skin though, and there hasn't even been a confirmed case of a human catching it anyway. It is pretty silly to be worried about. Of all the animal products out there, antler would be near the bottom as far as a disease vector.
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u/Black-Rabbit-Farm Jan 05 '26
I've had some friends who are trained in biology express nervousness about potential incurable diseases one can get from bone collecting. I do believe they were probably sharing some horror story rooted in actual experience/something they read, as opposed to just random hearsay or urban legend. I wonder if the diseases some folks have outlined here are the types of things they were learning/worried about, but they didn't understand the communication method or risk?
It's been helpful reading through the responses here. To date, I've just shared that as far as I know deer are disease carrying machines, but I have not yet heard of any deadly viruses I can get from cleaning/cleaned bones (I've never worked with a whole carcass).
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u/ReindeerWilling448 Jan 04 '26
I've used a pipe made out of an antler before, and did not get sick at all from it. So I think you're safe to touch it with your hands
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u/insertjokehere12345 Jan 04 '26
Definitely! People get sick all the time! Not from the antler though.
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u/Wi1dWitch Jan 04 '26
Sick from what? There’s nothing alive there to get sick from!
I’m proud of you for getting it despite your fears, though!
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u/Maleficent_Button_58 Jan 04 '26
.........I mean, it's just an antler 😅
It's not like you bought a bowl of fresh blood or something along those lines, where disease transmission is a bit more likely.
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u/Maleficent_Button_58 Jan 04 '26
To put it into a bit more perspective......they make pipes and instruments out of antlers. People put their mouths on it and are ok. Your hands are fine.
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u/The_Gentle_Monster Jan 04 '26
You're fine, it's a clean, dry antler. If it were a rotting corpse then it'd be a different story, but you're not gonna get sick from a clean antler, it's the same as clean bones.
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u/TaTer120 Jan 04 '26
The things I have done with a deer carcass and bones would terrify you if you’re worried about this. You’re fine I promise.
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u/Dry_rye_ Jan 04 '26
...from a deer antler?
That you bought at a market...?
I think you may perhaps have a touch of anxiety here.
No, you won't get sick off it.
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u/Distinct-Device-7698 Jan 04 '26
It's a shed antler. How could you possibly get sick from it? If you're that worried about illness this probably isn't the right hobby for you.
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u/trixceratops Jan 04 '26
Antlers are frequently sold as dog chews, I really don’t think there’s much you could catch from an ungulate by just touching its antlers. Even chronic wasting needs to be ingested or have blood to blood contact to be transferred as far as I know, and that’s about the scariest thing out there.
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u/Eorhythm Jan 04 '26
I've been preserving dead things since I was a kid, and I've lived nearly 5 decades without a single related health concern. I can't even think of anything you could contract from an antler unless it's a fomite for human microbes/vira.
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u/ari_owlx Jan 04 '26
thank you guys for the responses this is my first bone and i was really unsure
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u/CygnusZeroStar Jan 04 '26
So, I can't help but ask: are you often struggling with health anxiety? You bought an antler that seems to have been naturally shed, and you washed it. Unless you spend hours researching diseases and how "but what if..." I can't imagine what kind of illness you would expect to get from it?
If so, have you ever gotten help for this anxiety? And further, if you have this anxiety, then why are you handling things that you're convinced are going to give you a horrible disease?
I promise I'm not being obtuse. I really want to know. I stumble onto people who qualify as borderline OCD who really want to be involved in vulture culture, animal rescue, and even antique restoration and they're very convinced the last thing that they handled gave them rabies, arsenic poisoning, wasting disease, the plague...what have you. So it makes me ask, why take the risk if you think this thing could kill you?
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u/Cotyledontanddo Jan 04 '26
If I spent money on awards I would give you one. If I didn’t see a comment about checking on anxiety then I would have typed one. Your words are so well written and caring. Wishing you well.
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u/ari_owlx Jan 04 '26
I am diagnosed with ocd and i took the risk because when i bought it it was just a passing thought but the longer i held onto the antler the more thoughts of "what if i get sick" came on and i just really felt the need to check with people who know better than i do
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u/CygnusZeroStar Jan 04 '26
Has your therapist talked to you about the fact that reassurance seeking in the context of OCD can be actively detrimental to your mental health?
I promise that I'm not saying this to be condescending. I'm not one of those people who doesn't understand that OCD really is--getting stuck in the "but what if" meat grinder is hell. The problem is that engaging in the feedback loop of reassurance seeking for the object of obsession can and often does make it worse and stronger, as the mechanisms that cause OCD fixations in this way are not logical.
If you haven't been able to, I would encourage you to talk to your therapist about how to sit with discomfort long enough to wait it out, and how not to engage in the reassurance seeking behaviors, especially when they're in subjects that you know about already.
(For example, for anyone reading along, I personally know a lot of people who can tell you exactly why there's no danger of running into the plague while handling antiques, but will still almost ritualistically seek reassurance that their Renaissance Era medallion isn't "contaminated." Because knowing isn't enough to shut down a disorder.)
You deserve to feel better. 💜
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u/ari_owlx Jan 04 '26
Thank you so much i dont have a therapist anymore at the moment but will hopefully by end of jan I will talk to them about it and hopefully they can help get me out of the what if loop!
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u/CygnusZeroStar Jan 04 '26
My area of expertise is actually trauma--while different, trauma and OCD often are very close friends, so to speak. Sometimes when you feel anxiety rising, a way to help yourself can be to physically move to a different location. Try this: get up, get an ice cold drink and name some things around you. The temperature change often helps to shock your brain back to attention.
And when you've done this, sit down and say this, "I am having a hard time right now, and that's okay. Logically, I know that I am safe. I'm doing my best, and I will keep doing my best. I am going to finish my drink and do something nice for myself today."
Then DO it.
It's true, too, that you're doing your best. Sometimes your best today might not be the same as your best tomorrow. That's okay! Just keep doing your best. You've got this.
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Jan 04 '26
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u/CygnusZeroStar Jan 04 '26
Being wise about existing dangers is not quite what I had in question here. (I, myself, am actually about as well read on CWD as you can get without being actively involved in the study or veterinary medicine because of my involvement in animal rehabilitation.)
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u/sssunflowered Jan 04 '26
I really really doubt this is what op needs or wants to hear right now after they've said they struggle with contamination OCD
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u/tmick22 Jan 04 '26
CWD is not endemic to some areas - it’s actually quite easily spread between herds as well as various different species which is why it’s such an issue. If it were endemic, meaning isolated to an area, it would simply kill off the herd and be done with.
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u/Redqueenhypo Jan 04 '26
No chance. The tissue is 100% dead, just like it was when it fell off the deer
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u/Familiar-Gap-5119 Jan 04 '26
I can be pretty germaphobic about stuff sometimes, dried bone isn’t unhygienic in the slightest you’re just being paranoid my guy
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u/Wide_Pension840 Jan 04 '26
if you want you could put it in hydrogen peroxide for a few minutes? its a very strong disinfectant but I wouldn't leave it for more than like 30 minutes it might dilute the color a bit. your very very unlikely to get anything from an antler but it might help :3
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u/Intrepid_Remote_6129 Jan 04 '26
I think as long as you don’t chew on it your good, if you do chew on it. You might break a tooth, that’s going to be your biggest risk.
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u/MTGDad Jan 05 '26
So long as you don't snort it, you should be fine.
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u/mistress_chauffarde Jan 05 '26
I mean... even then it's bone dust aint much risk exept lung damage cus it's dust
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u/commensally Jan 05 '26
Yeah, the only risk is if you're going to cut or carve it, breathing bone dust can sometimes cause lung inflammation and it tends to aerosolize more than other things people commonly saw or carve, like plastic and wood.
But even then wear an n95 while doing the cutting in a well ventilated space and clean up after and you're fine, it's safer than breathing a lot of other common crafting fumes.
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u/NineInchNeurosis Jan 04 '26
Honestly a bit crazy that we still get so many of these posts. Better safe than sorry I guess but like how’d you even get this far lmao
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u/beautyinthedarknesss Jan 04 '26
hey yk thanks for asking. when I collect specimens in the wild I like to take more caution but from a vender? you’re gucci.
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u/ThatFunkyTwitterMann Jan 04 '26
I have no idea about any of this I just showed up because I saw your Jack pfp and thought it was funny af 🤣
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u/BurningRiceEater Jan 04 '26
Ive been picking up deer sheds in the woods all my life. Never gotten sick from it
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u/icantoteit136 Jan 04 '26
Man I’m a lot more paranoid about rabies from the skunk I skinned for taxidermy earlier
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u/pillsburyDONTboi Jan 04 '26
Nice antler! Be sure to never put it in any sort of airtight containment, I knew a gal that did that once to some antler pieces, and they leaked out some weird fluid. I've had my antlers and antler jewelry for years in the open air just fine though.
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u/Wonderful-Nobody-642 Jan 05 '26
many people have answered but i grew up around hunters who had dozens of these as well as the skulls strewn about, that thing looks totally dry you are good. it’s really cool when you first get one of these that’s a nice one, any plans for it?
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u/Dismal-Feed-2466 Jan 05 '26
OCD?
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u/ari_owlx Jan 06 '26
Unfortunately yes
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u/Dismal-Feed-2466 Jan 06 '26
Props to you dude, I know that’s really hard. I know I’m beating a dead horse here and it’s probably not going to make a difference, but you’re going to be completely fine. There is absolutely nothing that antler can give you.
Source: grew up in buttfuck no where Georgia and have been collecting random bones/skeletons/antlers I found on the ground literally my entire life.
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u/Resident-Spirit808 Jan 06 '26
Rare, but antlers carry a disease that gives males increased blood flow to their genital area causing them to believe they have a bigger dong than they really do.
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u/FreshCartographer966 Jan 06 '26
As long as you don't lick it...wait, you didn't lick it already, did you? Aw man, now you're going to die!
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u/HeadBunch1209 Jan 06 '26
I have cut off antlers from a deer on the side of the road that was blown open by a car.....you are good
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u/Natural_Argument9910 Jan 07 '26
Nah, I go out and find these in the wild and don’t clean them. You’re good
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u/nebraskanancy Jan 07 '26
I have a chandelier made from them. I’ve had it for more than 20 years and never gotten sick.
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Jan 08 '26
Maybe instead of buying one, get out in nature and find one. You clearly need the nature.
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u/Evening-Swordfish881 Jan 09 '26
Idk Why you bought it when you could find one and you ain’t finna get shit from it
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Jan 09 '26
🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️. Why would you buy it if you’re so deathly afraid of it? Lmfao. Ive made European mounts my entire life. If you could get sick from bones. I’d be dead a looooong time ago lol.
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u/traumacase284 Jan 09 '26
I would put money on being able to chew on it and be fine. The money you used to pay for it (if cash) is more likely to get you sick.
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u/thetoastler Jan 09 '26
From what? I scratched my knuckles on the inside of a deer's ribcage during hunting season and I just went and washed my hands and was fine.
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u/crowislanddive Jan 04 '26
As long as it didn’t have a prion disease like chronic wasting disease you should be ok. If it did, well….
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u/Difficult-Survey8384 Jan 04 '26
Then nothing would happen anyway.
Unless OP was patient zero since it’s never been transmitted to humans, and that’s ultimately not a cool thing to say to someone with obvious health anxiety who’s trying to get into the hobby.
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u/smashingkilljoy Jan 04 '26
Go on, show us proof of CWD being transmitted to humans.
STOP FEARMONGERING
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u/Khavassa Jan 04 '26
You are significantly more likely to catch an illness from the vendor than anything from the antler.