What makes whitetail have antlers like this? Will they grow out of it?

caseroj said:

That's an interesting view point. I was under the impression that atypical deer were more desirable than the typical ones if only because they were less common. I actually don't care as I like them both. A deer is a deer regardless of the symmetry (or lack thereof) of the antlers. I doubt the meat would taste any different between the two. Except for that one story up above about the deer who never dropped his antlers because he accidentally castrated himself. I rather suspect his meat would be much less gamey than the others.

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We call it Non-typical and personally i love the extra points and character. I've been running trail cams for 20 years and have pics of the same deer throughout it's life. Some never grow big antlers and some young bucks grow huge antlers thier whole life. And some grow a funky antler on one side thier whole life. I feel genetics is the biggest influence with nutrition and stress as other factors. Some deer grow funky antlers their whole life and others get injured and then start growing a non typical rack. I personally don't like the Boone and Crockett system for scoring where you subtract the deductions from the score. I don't take away anything from the trophy, I'm all about gross scores and total inches.

Often times an injury on the opposite side will cause this kind of antler development. There is quite a bit of research conducted by Texas A&M on the subject.

this is an injury not genes, next year I believe to be ok

CGWVU said:

Hi all,
We've noticed that a lot of nice bucks have one side that doesn't match the other. It's this way with multiple deer. Will these deer never grow out of this?

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Possibly from eating genetically modified corn

Take him out of the gene pool!

I talked to a biologist with the Iowa DNR and he said very definitely he was injured in some way on the opposite side from the abnormality, and he would never change. I shot a deer one year with a similar condition and upon skinning him, in the opposite rear leg above the dog leg joint I found a muzzleloader lead ball and 2 each 22 caliber bullets. The taste was ok, but the horn on the opposite side was not even close to matching the other horn. I think that is your situation. He would probably still be an eater.

jarnold37 said:

Possibly from eating genetically modified corn

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W T F?

My wife has two different size boobs. One is bigger than the other, and a little bit rounder. Been that way since I first saw em when she was 20. I don't know why. But I will give it a few more years to see if they even out. Nature does weird stuff.

Daves762 said:

My wife has two different size boobs. One is bigger than the other, and a little bit rounder. Been that way since I first saw em when she was 20. I don't know why. But I will give it a few more years to see if they even out. Nature does weird stuff.

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We're gonna need pics to verify.

I had her rack on trail cam. But she deleted them. Still waiting on the answer as to why she was topless in the back woods......
Honestly I would post the pic, as they are pretty awesome. But someone with grey hair would get offended and sensor my post.

In most cases, an injury happens to A buck that causes the antlers on the opposite side to deform. Its the deers body attempting to repair itself so it pulls protein from the other side of the body, thus deforming the uninjured side of the deers horn. Ive also found that once a deer has the deformity in the antlers from the injury, not only does that deer never regain a balanced rack, it also becomes a genetic trait that can be passed on to fawns the buck sires . Im in the same situation here . Just found out today that the buck i believe to have had the original injury was harvested by a hunter across the street from me. I have at least 2 more, younger deer showing identical traits, ie a normal 4 pt side ( the STANDARD whitetail 4x4 set ) and a fork on the other side . Luckily, i have pics of nice even 4x4 bucks too. Bad part is none of these animals are of interest to me. One buck i have named " donkey " is the only deer on the place im interested in taking. He is nothing special rack wise. Just an old saggy skinned warrior that looks to be in his last season . Got a pic of him at 4:44 this morning. Seems to come thru about once a week.

Stammster said:

Here's a buck I shot last year in Pennsylvania.

An injured rear leg will cause the opposite side antlers to develop slower. An injured front leg will cause the same side antlers to develop slower.

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Ive not seen the front leg injury affect the same side horns. Its always been the opposite side that is off whether its a front or rear leg .

As stated in several previous post multiple deer with the same issue is genetic not all of them were injured in the same way

JMW67 said:

As stated in several previous post multiple deer with the same issue is genetic not all of them were injured in the same way

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I believe an injury to a buck that deforms his antler will BECOME a genetic trait he will pass on .