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Antler Growth

OSUTodd

OSUTodd

Active Member
Joined
Mar 8, 2023
Messages
144
Location
OK
Just pulled my cameras from an area we first checked out in January. They were there three weeks, and there are definitely some nice deer in there. At least five or six that would be the biggest or second biggest ever for me.

When antlers are in velvet, do they grow in both mass and length, like a tree branch gets both longer and thicker as it grows, or do they just grow from the tips, and not gain mass through the summer?

There's one that's really wide, but not much mass, considering they'll look smaller when the velvet is off. He might be just a really large framed 2 or 3 year old. Either way, I'm not passing him up if he walks by.
 
Antlers grow from the tips, so if a buck is going to have a lot of mass, you'll know it by the time he starts growing tines. If he doesn't look massive now, he definitely won't when the velvet comes off. If the tines are bulbous at the tips, they're still growing. Usually by this time of year antler growth slows way down as the bone starts to mineralize/ harden under the velvet. Every once in a while I'll see a buck put on significant antler growth in August, but even then it's just tine length, not mass.
 
OspreyZB said:
Antlers grow from the tips, so if a buck is going to have a lot of mass, you'll know it by the time he starts growing tines. If he doesn't look massive now, he definitely won't when the velvet comes off. If the tines are bulbous at the tips, they're still growing. Usually by this time of year antler growth slows way down as the bone starts to mineralize/ harden under the velvet. Every once in a while I'll see a buck put on significant antler growth in August, but even then it's just tine length, not mass.
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He is further south than you and timing is very area dependent. Here in Florida they have just started growing antlers. They will be in velvet in October
 
jphillips97 said:
He is further south than you and timing is very area dependent. Here in Florida they have just started growing antlers. They will be in velvet in October
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Florida is an outlier... You can hunt rutting bucks right now down there in zone a. I don't know but I think Oklahoma is a lot closer timing wise to what I'm seeing. They might be a week or 2 off, but not months.
 
Over an 1" a day in prime growing time. Our deer are still adding inches.....as are most deer in the US.
I watch alot of them grow and would question "tip growth". Deer adding mass aren't doing it out of the tips. That comes from the base like a tree branch. ALL of the antler grows.
 
kbetts said:
Over an 1" a day in prime growing time. Our deer are still adding inches.....as are most deer in the US.
I watch alot of them grow and would question "tip growth". Deer adding mass aren't doing it out of the tips. That comes from the base like a tree branch. ALL of the antler grows.
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I would question "over an inch a day" of antler growth if we're talking per tine... How long is peak growing season, and how long do those tines end up? There would be a bunch of world record bucks running around DE if that were the case... They may still be adding inches now, but not nearly at the rate they were a month ago. I also watch a lot of bucks grow their antlers, and I can't say I've ever seen one add significant mass late in the growing season. The ones that are going to have a lot of mass will have coke cans growing out of their heads in April/May.

From the book Whitetail Summer by John Ozoga, third paragraph addresses how antlers grow from the tips.
Screenshot_20230730-110133.jpg
 
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OspreyZB said:
I would question "over an inch a day" of antler growth if we're talking per tine... How long is peak growing season, and how long do those tines end up? There would be a bunch of world record bucks running around DE if that were the case... They may still be adding inches now, but not nearly at the rate they were a month ago. I also watch a lot of bucks grow their antlers, and I can't say I've ever seen one add significant mass late in the growing season. The ones that are going to have a lot of mass will have coke cans growing out of their heads in April/May.

From the book Whitetail Summer by John Ozoga, third paragraph addresses how antlers grow from the tips.
View attachment 87925
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Did I say 1" a day per tine? Length only?

Think about time and time growth. April through August is about what, 150 days? Not including young bucks and/or time to "harden", how fast did those antlers grow on that P&Y?
As for tip growth, yes most of the concentration of developing material is at the tip, but the mass doesn't just appear.
100 day growth time as said in the book is bogus imo. Growing season is much longer. Our deer have nubs in March.
 
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Seems like most of what I remember reading in the past was that bucks would put on the greatest amount of growth in the last 30 or so days before they start to transition to hard horn and the velvet dries. the 1" per day growth is the number I remember as well but it was just a general growth statement not specific to tine length or mass per say.
 
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