Broken tines..........

[HARTCORE HUNTER]

When a deer busts off his tines fighting or etc. Does this effect his antler growth the following year?? Seen some knarly looking antlers on mulies and moose this year and have been told its possible they have been damaged from previous years fighting... Whats your opinion? :confused:

[hunter1947]

No this does not effect the antler growth for the next season antler growth..

[jml11]

No the antler is essentially dead tissue once it hardens off and the velvet comes off, kinda like your hair or finger nails. Does the haircut you get affect future growth...no.

Antler growth is based on genetics and nutrition (health). The only way antler growth is affected is if they are damaged while they are growing (soft and in velvet) but they will only be affected that year. They can be affected yearly if the portion of the skull where the antler grows from is damaged during fighting or escaping a predator (like damaging your finger nail bed, that nail may grow funny forever after that). This is how you can find 4x1 mulies or 10x 2 bull moose etc, sometimes with crazy drop tines.

Overall health will affect antler growth as well. If the buck or bull has hormone issues their antler growth may also be affected to create some unique configurations. This can happen during fighting as well if he gets one in the junk.

[3kills]

if there testicles are damaged from fighting or jumpin a fence or what ever it will through there hormones off and cause weird antler growth. what is it that causes cactus bucks?

[moose2]

The big buck in my trail cam picture has a blind eye on the left and he also has a deformed rack on the same side. I don't know if it is related or not , but it sure isn't the same as the 5 side.
Mike

[M.Dean]

I watched a buck 3 years ago in a fight with another buck, the smaller buck was a spike in velvet, the other one was a 3 point in velvet. The spike took the brunt of the fight and lost his right side horn, it was bleeding pretty good after the fight. Anyway, for the last 2 years I've been seeing a buck, it's got 3 points on one side and a spike looking horn sticking up with a beaver tail drop tine on the other. Now I'm guessing it's the same buck, whether or not it's the same one or not who knows. But if the skull was damaged and healed up, maybe the horn would come in weird looking? I'd asked Dana to take a photo of the skull from the buck he got this year, it would be interesting to see if there's anything with the skull that would indicate if a damaged skull would cause weird antler growth.

[Stillhunting]

I shot a 50 inch moose near Burns Lk. several years ago and he had one huge paddle with 11 points and a tripalm brow and the other one was skinny with seven long daggers coming off it. He had a ton of scar tissue on his hind leg on the same side as the skinny antler. I don't know if it was an injury from wolves, fighting, or a bad shot, but I think wolves were the most likely cause. Anyway it was the toughest moose I have ever eaten, so I look for deformed antlers now before pulling the trigger.

[6616]

Broken tines should not effect the next years antler growth or structure, however in cases where skull damage occurs there's a good chance there could be some pedicle damage which will surely effect future growth structure.

It is possible to cause excessive strain on the pedicle leading to damage or deformation from getting a horn ripped of in a motor vehicle collision or other extra violent event. I don't think fighting would create that much strain under normal circumstances,,,, but then again, there's always paranormal circumstances like M.Dean describes.....I would guess that would be extremely, extremely, rare in mature deer.