What is wrong with this deer? I've never seen this.

I'm the buddy, he fricked up and ain't scared of shite. Hobbles pretty bad when he walks, we assume he got hit by a car.

Deer are fing resilient, that big arse scar tells a tale...Id hate to let an animal suffer, but I might let him shed those and see what happens.

ETA: Im far from an Veterinarian, but theres been far worse deer wounds posted where they survived. It seems when they sustain the wound everything gets out of balance and the body focuses on healing rather than growing antlers. Thats the only reason I would give them another year.

He got hit by a car.

A skeletal injury to the body usually shows as a deformity in the opposite side’s antler the next year. If he got fricked up on both sides but one side worse like being hit by a car, it can look something like that. The purple could be all kinds of shite, but it is likely related to the fact that he’s in poor health and trying to grow a big mass of bone out of his head.

I got a couple vet opinons. The deer is in velvet, and the deformation is from blood pooling between the velvet and the growing antler. The structural deformation is from a previous trauma, whether car or something else, where the skull plate where the antlers attached to the skull were fricked up, which made them grow out in abnormal directions. Combined with the velvet pooling with blood, that explains the antlers. Maybe it was hit by a car yesterday, but if so, it was also hit by a car a year ago. And could just now be dying from that car strike a year ago.

Does he have testicles? May have injured them causing the weird antlers.

Also may be a doe with horns.

Update: Lady next door tried to take the deer a bowl of water this morning and spooked it, it hobbled across the street and started eating the neighbors bushed before laying down next to his house. DNR came out and approached it to euthanize, but it jumped up and "ran" 4-5 houses down. He said they wont kill a deer that is mobile and "he is going to be fine".

DNR thought it was an old injury, said the horns will bleed and crystalize or calcify, cant remember which he said.

Keep us posted.

There’s countless stories of 3 legged deer and deer living with massive gunshot and broadhead injuries.

As said I bet it’s a vehicle injury and he may not recover completely physically, but looking at the cut off pic in the OP it looks damn healthy body weight wise to me. Doesn’t look abnormally skinny or anything. Probably just used to being in a suburban area around people either way and the injury makes it a little less mobile.

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Also may be a doe with horns.

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My first thought