Fascination with Antlers

Myth, or truth? Once deer hunting season ends, many white-tail enthusiasts hurry to start a mineral lick, with the belief that doing so will accomplish two main intents – help bucks grow bigger antlers and get bucks to frequent an area where the enthusiast will later hunt.

But do the supplements work?

I’ve read results of several studies which concluded that mineral supplements do not significantly change a buck’s antler growth. Do these results never see the light of day, or print, because those results would take the “deer antler supplement” industry and cut it off at the knees? Or, are those studies – most done on penned deer, eating a manufactured, nutritional feed – flawed?

Record-book bucks with outstanding head gear have been harvested for decades – long before any of those bucks had access to supplements. So where do whitetails get the extra phosphorus and calcium that they need to grow their new set of antlers?

This fact is fascinating to me – scientists learned long ago that bucks get the required minerals by leaching them from the bone in their rib cages. But, you’d reason, how can they do that? Doesn’t that weaken them structurally? It doesn’t, because during the period prior to new antler growth, excess amounts of calcium and phosphorus accumulate in the deer’s bones.

Wow. My friend Dr. Dave Samuel, who taught wildlife biology at West Virginia University for more than 30 years, has often said that scientists need to isolate that “inner signal” in a buck’s system that triggers both of those body changes – the accumulation of excess calcium and phosphorus, and the leaching of those minerals to the antler growth location. Somewhere in that process, Dr. Samuel believes, there’s a clue for a cure of bone cancers.

So, two things are going on while antler growth is occurring. Bone tissue in the rib cage is eroding, and new bone is formulating. Antlers grow from the tip, where cartilage is replaced by bone. The rate of growth can be nearly incredible, as much as 1/10 inch each day, in the early period of antler growth. The antlers also contain magnesium, sodium potassium, iron, zinc and other minerals.

Does setting up a mineral lick boost antler growth? First and foremost, the buck needs good genetics. Setting up a mineral lick may aid in antler development, but more so if the natural forage doesn’t have the needed minerals. With Chronic Wasting Disease on the radar, any practice that causes white-tailed deer to congregate in one area is potentially dangerous, as that can lead to spread of diseases.

The prime period of antler growth is spring. A buck’s antler size year-to-year is also related to the amount of rainfall the area receives during that period of prime antler growth, when deer are getting most of the water that they need in their diet from the water content of native forage. When deer nutrition is challenged in the spring due to drought, antler growth will not be as good.

Interesting Fact

Every year, in Pennsylvania, more than 30 deer aging teams descend upon hundreds of deer processors to gather data on the annual deer harvest. Every year, these teams look at more than 25,000 deer heads harvested during the firearms season. From 2012-2017, the number of bucks harvested which had already shed their antlers was between 3 and 4 percent. In 2018 it was 4 percent. Antler drop time varies according to a buck’s general health and nutrition, but typically occurs from December through March.