Thread: Please Tell Us About Antler Growth

My nephew shot a red stag a few days ago whose antlers hadn't yet broken through the skin. But last night I spotted a red stag which had massive antler growth. It got me wondering.....

The process of growing antlers seems miraculous compared to normal bone growth.

What have you observed in your area? When do they generally drop their antlers.... when do the new ones start to sprout..... ? Thanks in advance.

Here's last night's stag. I was in an open paddock under a bright full moon, but I was able to crawl slowly toward the deer (over the cow turd minefield) to get the photo. I was out looking for possums, but didn't see any. Spotting the deer made the trip worthwhile.

Well the big mature stags drop first,regrow first and often strip first.scraggly scrappers later. On farms it's quite spread out but GENERALLY give it a month and they have all dropped from the first one.

Deer antler is the fastest growing bone in the world. Approx. 12mm per day

Originally Posted by McNotty

Deer antler is the fastest growing bone in the world. Approx. 12mm per day

Pffft. What about a 77 year old on viagra?

Originally Posted by Tahr

Pffft. What about a 77 year old on viagra?

Still 12mm per day

Originally Posted by 7mmsaum

Still 12mm per day

I'd settle for that

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

Well the big mature stags drop first,regrow first and often strip first.scraggly scrappers later. On farms it's quite spread out but GENERALLY give it a month and they have all dropped from the first one.

That's good info thanks Micky. I have learned surprisingly little about this sort of thing. So what month do you reckon most of them start to drop?

Now...when grass starts to take off and apparently ,just like roaring it's all to do with daylight hours...why the new Caledonia rusa are in velvet,hard,rutting most of the year round....not enough change in season/daylight length to put them in synchronisation... I normally just watch farmed deer to see what's going on. Fawning is pretty much nothing,nothing,nothing,nothing...holy smoke fawns everywhere lol.

That fact you spotted the antlers on thermal is its growing now, velvet is body temperature with all the blood. Keep an eye on him and aim to find him again in February you will be all good.

The better the feed the better the growth, antlers have been know to grow as fast as 1.5 inches a day on velvet/trophy deer farms with heaps of feed etc...

HONESTLY what you see is what you get varies so much depending on what feed they are getting - meat animal shoot it - want to leave for a potential trophy leave it - that simple - it simply varies so much - the deer you see shoot or leave -

Originally Posted by Coote

My nephew shot a red stag a few days ago whose antlers hadn't yet broken through the skin. But last night I spotted a red stag which had massive antler growth. It got me wondering.....

The process of growing antlers seems miraculous compared to normal bone growth.

What have you observed in your area? When do they generally drop their antlers.... when do the new ones start to sprout..... ? Thanks in advance.

Here's last night's stag. I was in an open paddock under a bright full moon, but I was able to crawl slowly toward the deer (over the cow turd minefield) to get the photo. I was out looking for possums, but didn't see any. Spotting the deer made the trip worthwhile.

Attachment 285195

Antlers don’t break through the skin, velvet grows from the Coronet.
Can see from this photo Stags at different stages of growth.

Last week. NI public land (Craig, not me). Meanwhile there are still spikers and small stags that haven't shed yet.

Originally Posted by Billbob

That fact you spotted the antlers on thermal is its growing now, velvet is body temperature with all the blood. Keep an eye on him and aim to find him again in February you will be all good.

The better the feed the better the growth, antlers have been know to grow as fast as 1.5 inches a day on velvet/trophy deer farms with heaps of feed etc...

This, that first pic is clearly a good animal with some good velvet thats going to grow into something special.
As Tahr said ive noticed a few animals still in hard antler around here im wondering if its to do with the season its pretty late for here.

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Originally Posted by Tahr

Last week. NI public land (Craig, not me). Meanwhile there are still spikers and small stags that haven't shed yet.

Attachment 285590

Thats because Mother Nature timed it so that theyre all in to hard antler about the same time, just prior to the roar. Big stags need more time to grow their antlers than the younger or smaller ones, so they drop earlier to give them more growing time up until about mid Feb. If a stag has a pretty decent lot of velvet now, chances are he will be a somewhat large in Feb.

You can see why the koreans and chinese value the velvet so much , imagine the propertys it has to grow bone so quickly . minerals and hormones etc. Ive eaten a fair bit of it .