• Help Support TNDeer:

Deformed racks continued

H

Harold Money jr

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 14, 2007
Messages
937
Reaction score
863
Location
East Tennessee
I read the thread about deformed racks this year. It reminded me of a conversation I had with a buddies dad last year while rabbit hunting. He was showing me pictures of deer that he and his grandsons had killed on their farm in Greene county over the years. I noticed a lot of them had deformed racks. When I asked him about it he said that he remembered the exact day TWRA stocked their farm like in the 50's or 60's. He said he was about 10 and they had a buck and 7-8 does best I remember his numbers. He said I remember that lopsided bucks rack distinctly and a large percentage of the deer in the area still hold very similar genetics to that initial buck. I thought it was neat to have seen that and it's still that way. Anyone else seen genetics stay in an area?
 
Seems to come in waves on my place. For a few years I'll have a a few bladed spikes on one side with normal 4s on the other. Then I'll see numerous bucks with drop tines. Then I'll see normal wide 8s. Then tall 8s. Usually runs 2-3 years, then the genetics shift.
 
Deformed racks are not genetic... unless there's a genetic defect we are unaware of that causes incomplete apoptosis of the junction between pedicle and antler burr just prior to antler shedding.

But we also go in cycles... some years very few abnormal racks, other years a ton. I always attributed the increase in abnormal racks due to an unusually aggressive buck the year prior causing damage to his competition's pedicle from fighting.
 
Put me in the non-genetic damage camp. Seeing racks that are normal one side and spike the other, is caused from pedicle damage where antler meets skull. Growth relies on blood flow, and blood doesn't flow efficiently through scar tissue, resulting in stunted and deformed growth. Sometimes it's only one side & other times it's both sides.

This buck below would have been an otherwise stud of a 2yr old 8pt but he's half racked. If you notice his good side already has the brow tine broken off. The second pic is what he should have looked like. There's half a dozen or so bucks just like that every year on that property and only once every 4-5 years do I see such a young buck with a deformity, and it's always a spike or fork on one side. I rarely even see such a young buck on that property with broken tines. If it were a genetic issue I'd expect to see it showing up year after year in multiple deer.

1671888939320.png

1671889241873.png
 
And here's how it's caused. Young bucks fighting & sparring heavily, especially when antler connections are beginning to soften up for shedding but not quite there yet. Only one property I see young bucks acting like that regularly, and not coincidentally it's where I see all the deformed racks. No idea what causes them to be so aggressive at such a young age but I suspect it's the lack of mature bucks. For being an otherwise dynamite property I rarely see bucks reach maturity and when I do see an older class buck it's just cruising through during rut, never to be seen again. On every other property I run cams the age structure is a pretty symmetrical pyramid with young bucks making up the base, progressively getting thinner as age goes up. Roughly speaking, for every 5 yearlings I should expect three 2yr olds, two 3yr olds, and one 4yr old. Then for every two or three 4yr olds there's a 5yr old. That's what I normally see everywhere except this place. It's overrun with 1yr & 2yr olds and sometimes a 3yr old. Rarely ever a 4yr or 5yr old. My theory is that there are no older bucks to serve as an authority structure, so the pecking order is completely out of whack. It's like a room full of teenage boys with no grown man to keep them in check.

1671890436912.png
 
I've never seen more deformed racks as I have last year and this year. By deformed, I mean broken off or pedicle damage. No clue why everything was so competitive last year and so mute this year (literally 180 degree difference). With nature and weather conditions we've experienced, it tells me Mother Nature had something planned we may never quite understand.
 
JCDEERMAN said:
I've never seen more deformed racks as I have last year and this year. By deformed, I mean broken off or pedicle damage. No clue why everything was so competitive last year and so mute this year (literally 180 degree difference). With nature and weather conditions we've experienced, it tells me Mother Nature had something planned we may never quite understand.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Something odd these last couple years.
 
We have an area of National Forest back home that has historically produced deer without brow tines. I've been hunting it for 30 years and that's always been the case. Roughly 8 in 10 bucks won't have brow tines.
 
JCDEERMAN said:
I've never seen more deformed racks as I have last year and this year. By deformed, I mean broken off or pedicle damage. No clue why everything was so competitive last year and so mute this year (literally 180 degree difference). With nature and weather conditions we've experienced, it tells me Mother Nature had something planned we may never quite understand.
Click to expand...
This is what I'm seeing as well. Last year, saw the first one-antler-deformed racks we've seen in over 20 years. This year, quite a few. No idea why.

And this year, with the lack of 3 1/2+ bucks, yearling bucks are not only sparring, they're actually fighting. Never seen that before. The below video may have started as a sparring match, but these two yearlings are seriously going at it. That's a true fight.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0012.MP4
    30.4 MB
paboom said:
We have an area of National Forest back home that has historically produced deer without brow tines. I've been hunting it for 30 years and that's always been the case. Roughly 8 in 10 bucks won't have brow tines.
Click to expand...
Now THAT is genetic. I have seen "no browtine" populations several times. In fact, there's a population of white deer (not albinos) in I believe Maryland, and none of the bucks have browtines.
 
Harold Money jr said:
I guess when I said deformed racks I really meant racks mismatched sides not from an apparent injury.
Click to expand...
Depends on what you mean by "mismatched." Slight variations are normal, due to the growth process and slight variations in the timing of gene expression. But if you're talking mismatched like Ski's first pictured buck above, those are always injury induced. Sometimes it is an injury to buck's body. Sometimes it is an injury to the growing antler in velvet. But most often, especially when the antler is seriously undersized, or a cluster of spikes, or a distorted fork, then it is a pedicle injury, which is permanent. If an antler falls offs or is torn off before it is ready to naturally drop, the growth center of the pedicle is often ripped out. This causes life-long and worsening-with-age deformation of that antler.
 
I hunt a farm where there is two deer that have antler turned opposite of what there supposed to be what causes this or is it genetic if so I'll cull them the boys been itching to shoot them anyway
 
Well I guess I wait and see what they are next year one is a 5 point the othe is a spike let them go I ain't seen a shooter buck all year but it ain't over yet lol
 
Squirle hunter said:
Well I guess I wait and see what they are next year one is a 5 point the othe is a spike let them go I ain't seen a shooter buck all year but it ain't over yet lol
Click to expand...
If the deformity was due to a body injury or damage to the antler while it was in velvet, the defomrity could be gone next year, or less severe. Some deer with body-injury-induced deformities grow normal antlers later in life. Damage to an antler while it is growing usually fades over a number of years. The deer's brain has a way of remembering damage to a growing antler (trophic memory) and recreating the deformity in future years, although this usually fades over time.

If the deformity was due to damage to the buck's pedicle, the deformed antler will get worse with time, usually turning into a big palmated spike at maturity.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top