When do antlers shed from deer

One researcher in Mississippi looked at the casting dates for individual bucks in captivity and found that as long as the environment was the same, individual bucks dropped their antlers about the same date every year.

These captive bucks got the same diet all the time, thus their body condition probably stayed the same after the rut, year after year. The fact that they dropped their antlers on the same date each year suggests some kind of innate program within each buck that causes them to drop their antlers. The question of why some bucks drop early or late is not easy to answer, simply because there are so many things happening in the deer woods that impact antler casting.

Will knowing all this impact your hunting success? By Dr. Dave Samuel January 29, Categories Whitetail Deer. Tags Dr.

Sign Me Up! Join other outdoor enthusiasts who already get great content delivered right to their inbox. If you don't want to bring your iPad into the bathroom, we can send you a magazine subscription for free! Late-winter and early spring are ideal times to search for shed antlers in the North and Midwest because almost all of the bucks have shed and the antlers are easy to spot on shallow snow. Bucks often walk only to yards and then lie down out of the wind on the first east- or south-facing hillside.

You might find sheds on or just off a trail or along the bedding slope. Bones can be tough to spot in brown grass lit with sunlight. Mark off small grids of land, walk slowly over each and look straight down at the ground for sheds. Iowa shed expert Don Kisky stepped on a stick one April day—or so he thought. He dug through the leaves and uncovered a five-point, inch shed. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly.

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Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. That has not been my observation here in Pennsylvania. When I found my shed, I figured that the process was beginning locally, but a week later, my daughter saw six antlered bucks all together. Antler growth and development is dependent on the photoperiod hours of daylight per day and testosterone levels, not temperature.

So is antler drop. When testosterone levels drop, antlers loosen and fall off. According to Kip Adams, wildlife biologist and director of conservation for the Quality Deer Management Association, testosterone levels are affected by photoperiod, nutrition, injuries and dominance. Poor nutrition or injuries lead to early shedding.

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.