Truth on antlers

[K9kodi]

So, what’s the actual truth behind antlers and growth. Is there an industry standard, a reliable growth chart. Is it more genetics or environment or combo. If I look at antlers like my gym routine and genuine body dysmorphia, muscles are built with a good healthy diet but genetics plays a good part. You can have great genetics but with a poor diet you’ll never reach potential.

I have a lot of game cam pics of nice deer. Tall wide racks, but a lot are only 6 pointers. I have some pics of deer that look like they are wearing big halos but they are only 4. Will that big 4 at 1.5-2.5 years old be a big 6 next year or a bigger 4? I have tons of pics of nice size racks, but lack points, not that I’m hunting for points, it’s an inquisitive mind inquiring

 

[Skerhunter]

It is both! Some deer have the genetics to be 140” max others 200+. Without the proper nutrition of the doe and the buck throughout its life - it won’t reach its maximum potential at 5+ years old. Tricky part is keeping them alive for 5 years! Lots of research out there!

99% of the 2.5 year old deer around my place are 4x4s or occasionally 4x5s - by 3.5 some are 5x5s but I really can’t see what they will be until they hit 4.5. Some will blow up an be 180-200”+ deer but some never break 150” and stay 4x4s.

Now if you live in an area where you cant supplement feed, have below avg genetics, and crappy feed for the deer you may never produce a B&C buck.

 

[K9kodi]

Im not so much looking for b/c. It’s a lot of family land , a lot, with only me really hunting so no real pressure and on the size of the land I don’t believe I could do much damage or influence to the heards. I’ll send some pics of what I’m talking about

 

[K9kodi]

I’m not complaining, I can supplemental feed off season, but not close enough to keep feeders up . Was thinking a few food plots and mineral blocks just to see what would happen. I’m not looking to grow antler size, the time at the farm away from work and with friends and family is what makes it, I know there’s some monsters out there, I seen em, just wondering about these 4 and 6s, is that all they will ever be, just a larger frame as time goes towards peak

 

[Skerhunter]

I’m not complaining, I can supplemental feed off season, but not close enough to keep feeders up . Was thinking a few food plots and mineral blocks just to see what would happen. I’m not looking to grow antler size, the time at the farm away from work and with friends and family is what makes it, I know there’s some monsters out there, I seen em, just wondering about these 4 and 6s, is that all they will ever be, just a larger frame as time goes towards peak

I would suggest you supplement with mineral. I’m a fan of purina products (feeding other animals). They do actual controlled trials/studies - check out their research!

On the 4s/6s comment like I said earlier you need to get them to 4.5 before you can really tell. Some 3.5 year olds can get huge, but not many.

Here is a 4.5 year old that isn’t going to amount to much score wise.




That’s him at 5.5 I don’t expect him to be much bigger next year.



This deer was a 4x4 at 2.5 and a 4x5 as a 3 year old. He blew up at 4 and had his biggest rack at 5. Pic below he was 6 and smaller by 7.

 

[Texasbuckeye]

What the OP is seeing is the difference between a teenage body and an adult body in the gym…you are looking at you g bucks who havent reached anywhere near full body size let alone full antler expression.
Yes, genetics plays a big role, but nutrition is inportant. The most important aspect to antler growth is age. Gotta let them age.

You will rarely see a good 2.5 yo buck from an antler standpoint. Gotta let them get older.

We avoid shooting bucks until At least 4.5 (and then only if it is silly good) and try hard to avoid the pull until they are 5.5 or above.

Age. Nutrition. Genetics. For most small property hunters, this is the order of importance for antler expression. Most small property hunters never realize the full genetic potential for their deer due to a number of facotrs, but the one thing we can do is feed and the one thinf we can “not” do is pull the trigger on small bucks

 

[dr.mooseknuckles]

I listened to a Southern Outdoorsman Podcast in the last year and were discussing this exact same thing. Multiple studies of late indicate a few things, but food and stressors around food are big components. Called Epigenetics. Food and environmental factors, herd size and carrying capacity all play a role in the ability for a buck to express it's full genetic potential. This also is seen with older age class of bucks.

Another big eye opener for me was that doe nutritional status during gestation is a big factor in determining how that buck will express it's genetic potential through antler development, i.e. a big ole fatty healthy doe, should pop out a buck fawn that should produce better antlers. The inverse is also true and makes a great deal of sense.

Limiting the number of mouths on the property (does), providing or fostering quality food/forage, and adequate bedding for safety all help with antler development.

 

[wind gypsy]

My understanding as outlined by @dr.mooseknuckles above is the largest contributor to potential is doe health during gestational period. And it stacks in generations - Doe is born to a very healthy, well nourished mother and is very well nourished and healthy herself SHOULD be able to throw even higher potential offspring than she herself was.

IIRC the studies they've done on captives have shown that generations of healthy parents tend to overcome genetic shortcomings in relatively few generations.

The kicker in all of this for the small property manager/hunter is that they seldom see any benefits to this in their bucks as most bucks disperse from their mother's home range. So unless you've got a huge tract or a high fence, you seldom see the benefit of bucks maximizing their potential due to generations of healthy and well nourished does. Keeping the bucks whose home range is on your hunting area well nourished can definitely help but its not going to move mountains and likely isn't observable.. So trying to get more to old age (another near impossible thing to do with a small property) has a little higher odds of having an impact but can still feel/prove futile.

 

[Texasbuckeye]

There are a ton of reasons why a buck could not express its full genetic potential in antlers, the number one issue is age. The number two issue is nutrition. the number three issue is stress. number four is so far down the list it isn't funny, but somewhere in there comes epigenetics.

Age- can not grow big antlers unless the buck is allowed to reach full body size. Anything less than 5.5 yo buck is not full adult sized buck so they are just not sending all the nutrients they can to antler creation, they are still growing their body.

Nutrition- so many factors here. Supplemental feed helps, but removing mouths to feed helps more. most low fenced properties will not get to a perfect buck to doe ratio, but the amount of doe on a property directly influences the amount of food a buck can eat, Strictly speaking, removing doe is a must for anyone trying to manage for antler size. Epigenetics comes in here as well, as deer that have always been underfed will take a lot longer to express full genetics of body size (and consequent antler size) for several generations of proper nutrition. It takes a lot of persistent sustained work to take a herd and improve it from an epigenetic standpoint. If anyone has questions about epigenetics I can explain in a separate post.

Stress- environmental stress, cold, heat, lack of cover, excessive predation or physical stress from humans or other animals. All these contribute to a lack of overall health and wasting calories to adapt and those calories are nutrients that could be used in antler formation.

Other factors: only worry about these once the above three are maximized to your best ability and means

Genetics: this is mostly out of your control unless you decide you want to high fence your property and import genetic freaks. You are mostly stuck with what you have in your hunting area and some area genetic traits are not what they are everywhere else. The research mostly says that in a low fence situation, there is no ability to modify or change the overall genetics of the herd, even by introducing different genetics into the mix. The low fence nature prevents control of genetic shift and within a generation or two of introduced genetics, the herd is back to the prevailing genetic traits.

Buck to doe ratio: making this as close to 1:1 as possible will help develop stronger bigger bucks. This is a tough ask for most hunters with limited tags though, so getting it as close as possible while staying within the legal limits of what you can do is mostly all you can do. Certainly, anyone who manages for antlers needs to understand the role taking doe off the property will perform.

Structuring age classes in bucks: once you have all the above maximized, consider ranking the best and worst of the bucks in each age class and selectively eliminating the worst. This has to be done with doe management in mind though as you want the buck to doe ratio to remain maximized. But if you have tags to fill and means to do it, taking the runts of each age class will help.

 

[dr.mooseknuckles]

Texasbuckeye explained it better than I did. 100% agree

 

[Texasbuckeye]

My understanding as outlined by @dr.mooseknuckles above is the largest contributor to potential is doe health during gestational period. And it stacks in generations - Doe is born to a very healthy, well nourished mother and is very well nourished and healthy herself SHOULD be able to throw even higher potential offspring than she herself was.

IIRC the studies they've done on captives have shown that generations of healthy parents tend to overcome genetic shortcomings in relatively few generations.

The kicker in all of this for the small property manager/hunter is that they seldom see any benefits to this in their bucks as most bucks disperse from their mother's home range. So unless you've got a huge tract or a high fence, you seldom see the benefit of bucks maximizing their potential due to generations of healthy and well nourished does. Keeping the bucks whose home range is on your hunting area well nourished can definitely help but its not going to move mountains and likely isn't observable.. So trying to get more to old age (another near impossible thing to do with a small property) has a little higher odds of having an impact but can still feel/prove futile.

I will add to the discussion here: what people describe with regard to epigenetics is not "improving the genetics of the herd", it is allowing suppressed genetic potential to be expressed.

But first let me back it up a little. Fat doe are eating good. A healthy doe is going to drop a healthier fawn as a result, but there could be more to the story. If you have maximized the nutrition of a deer herd, this is a good thing and leads to fat does. This leads to higher twinning and better healthier fawns (buck fawns being about half that). If you have fat doe, who are eating as much as they want, you probably have a good situation.

Now, think of a deer herd that has been generationally malnourished (or stressed by heat, cold, predation, whatever) and you take a deer out of that environment. It takes a while, research shows three full generations, before those subsequent deer will show body sizes on par with their peers in non-malnourished or stressed environments. This is natures method of allowing animals to flourish in poorer environments than they are made for.

This is even expressed in humans, and while extremely uncommon, we see people in North Korea who are generationally malnourished. When you compare these people on average to the average people in South Korea (largely the same genetic pool) the South Koreans are quite bit taller and weigh more. There can be examples from other areas as well. Presumably, we would expect to see each successive generation of defected North Koreans growing taller and heavier until they were on par with their south Korean genetic kin.

So remember, epigenetics is not about changing the genetic pool of a deer herd, it is about allowing suppressed genes to become fully expressed and maximized. this starts by maximizing nutrition and environmental issues such as predation and other stressors, but starts with nutrition. The epigenetic discussion goes hand in hand with the buck antler discussion, but it is more about overall herd health than any specific deer expression of genetics.

 

[Habitat#1]

Besides doe health I think soil quality has alot to do with it because the nutrients in the soil go into everything they eat.My ground is very sand with not so great browse so even though in Kansas the mass and size is down from other pats of state that has better soil or more minerals.