But how do their antlers grow so quickly? It requires a lot of energy, and while it may seem like they sprout overnight, antler growth is an almost continuous process. Deer and their relatives grow antlers each spring and shed them every winter.
Once antlers are shed, the process of growing them begins anew. Male deer have two spots on their skulls called pedicles from which their antlers grow. In the spring, the antlers begin to sprout from the pedicles. The new antlers are covered by a fuzzy-looking skin called velvet. The velvet is specialized to help the antlers grow, Popular Science reports. It's filled with blood vessels that help transport blood, oxygen and essential nutrients to the area, which allow the antlers to grow quickly.
While the antlers are covered in velvet, deer don't want them to come into contact with anything that could injure or damage them. Injuries to the velvet or even another part of the buck's body can cause the antlers to grow abnormally.
When the antlers are fully grown, they harden to bone and the velvet is cut off from the deer's blood supply and dies away. The velvet then sheds, and the deer try to remove it by rubbing it against trees and other structures.
By the time mating season begins in the fall, the velvet is gone and the antlers are a hard, bony material. The antlers themselves are mostly made of calcium, just like bone, Sciencing reports. Well-known antler expert Dr. George Bubenik, with the University of Guelph in Ontario, noted that testosterone levels are also affected by the presence of does that are in estrus. Here in Pennsylvania, most does are bred in mid-November, but if un-bred does are present, bucks will keep their antlers longer.
Again, according to Bubenik, another factor is continued fighting between bucks, which could be related to additional does in estrus. If bucks continue to spar, testosterone levels stay up and their antlers will stay on longer. Conditions this winter are vastly different all across Pennsylvania, but in my area, just when I think that it would be a good time to look for shed antlers, it snows another 4 inches or so.
I treasure my antler find, and as soon as this snow melts, I will be out hoping to locate another one. An expert at finding sheds, I am not. Searching online will lead you to expert tips on how and where to locate sheds. I will just share the most obvious advice.
If there is still a little snow on the ground, follow well-used deer trails. Check feeding and bedding areas. Anywhere that a buck spends a good percentage of his time increases the odds that a shed will be there.
Above all else, look down — that is where the antlers will be. Your email address will not be published. While some deer can have pointy deer tines or a short deer rack, others can develop long antlers and complex tines. The pedicles of a deer, like human fingerprints, are all unique. The growth of deer antlers is related to the deer's hormone levels. Its hormones drop when the deer sheds its antlers, and as the antlers grow, hormone levels increase.
When a deer sheds its velvet, its hormone levels have reached its highest point. Due to hormonal imbalance, sometimes female deer start to develop antlers. Although they are smaller than buck antlers, you may find does with short antler stumps in their skulls.
Deer try to avoid injury during their velvet stage. Any damage to their antlers during the growth process could result in abnormalities. A deer's antlers need calcium and other minerals from the rest of the body's bones to grow properly. Any injury or disease in the rest of the body can hinder whitetail deer antler growth. Of course, genetics are difficult to manage if you want to grow bigger deer antlers in your deer population.
While you may not know each individual deer's parents, you can look at the deer in your area since they are all most likely related. You should watch for trends in antler size and shape in your area during the spring and summer to prepare for hunting season in the fall. The buck reaches antler maturity at six years. Over its lifetime, the deer will develop and shed antlers, with new, uniquely-shaped antlers appearing each time.
Generally, antlers grow in about days. This timeline of deer antler growth by year demonstrates what antlers will look like with age after the deer grows and sheds its antlers throughout the year. While their antlers come in all shapes and sizes, most of their antlers look like thin beams sticking out by their ears. The deer that will have the strongest and largest antlers later in life are those that have multiple tines at a young age. By this point, a healthy buck should have antlers as wide as its ears.
They may also start showing signs of how many deer tines they will have when they fully mature. Most bucks have reached more than half of their optimal antler growth by three years old. At this age, its neck should be full and its chest should be deep.
The spread of the antlers should grow past the width of the ears with an adequate mass. At four years old, the buck has developed into a strong, healthy deer. It is skinnier than it will be at full maturity. Most bucks reach more than three-quarters of their optimal antler growth at age four. Generally, bucks' antlers fully mature between five and seven years old. During this time, they have also reached their optimal body mass to have a full, strong appearance.
The fullness and complexity of their antlers will depend on their access to nutrition and their genetic makeup. Since most free-range deer are hunted during their prime age of five to seven, you will find few deer older than eight years old. Until this age, deer antlers get bigger each year. As deer age, the shape and size of their antlers will decrease and their body mass will shrink. A deer of this age will have weathered antlers to show their fights with other deer and their journey through life.
Whitetail deer begin to grow their antlers in the spring, and you'll start to see deer losing antlers in the winter. Here is the general timeline of the whitetail deer antler growth process by month. Deer begin to grow antlers between late March and early April. During this time, two stumps of bone pop out from the deer's pedicles, wrapped in a thin layer of velvet skin.
The velvet contains the oxygen and nutrients needed for the antlers to grow into healthy, mature antlers. When the antlers of the whitetail deer are in velvet, deer try to keep their antlers from injury. Any injuries brought on by weather, knocking into objects or other deer could result in abnormalities in their antlers. Since deer use nutrients from their entire body — such as the bones in their legs — they need to have proper nutrition from a young age.
April In the middle of spring, May is when more nutritious foods are available to bucks. During this time, whitetails prefer food and forage that is high in protein and other essential nutrients. With time to fully recover from the winter, the whitetail deer's body can now fully focus on antler growth.
At the end of May, deer should start to show a second point on their deer rack. The antler beams should also be about half of what their length will be at full maturity. May
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