Deer Streams / Wiki / Antlers
Antlers are bone. A buck grows a new set every year and drops it. They are not horns. Horns, like a sheep’s, stay on and grow from the base.
On this cam. Season 2 opens November 1, when antlers are already hard. Through the winter some bucks drop them. A lopsided rack for a day or two is a shed, not an injury. The cam does not score or rank antlers.
Antlers grow from pedicles, two bony bases on the skull. While they grow, mostly in spring and summer, they are covered in velvet. Velvet is skin. It carries blood to the growing bone.
Lengthening days and then rising testosterone finish the growth. The velvet dries and the buck rubs it off on shrubs, usually in late summer. By November the antlers are hard, pale or stained, and polished at the tips. That is hard horn. The word “horn” stuck. The material is still bone.
After the breeding season, testosterone falls. The bone at the base weakens, and the antlers cast off. In the north this often happens from December into March. One side can drop before the other.
The dropped antler is dead bone. Mice and squirrels chew them for the minerals. A new set starts the next spring. It is not a photocopy of the last one.
Age, food, injury, and the individual all change a rack. A young buck may carry spikes or a small basket. A prime-aged buck often carries more points. An old buck can grow a smaller set again. Poor food in the growing months shows up in the antler.
Points are not a birthday cake. You cannot count the tines and know the year. The cam is a place to watch the cycle, not a place to judge it.
