What Happens If Deer Antlers Break Off / 5 How to Videos

Deer Antlers Break Off. If the antler of deer breaks during the spring or summer, when the Deer’s antlers are in the velvet it bleeds a bit and heals leaving a deformed antler. If it happens in the fall after the velvet is off it is pretty much dead bone-like material. It is a little porous in the center and much denser around the periphery. The deer will eventually shed the remaining portion of the antler in the fall and spring and regrow a normal set of Antlers afterward. Post velvet there are no blood vessels in the antler and thus do not bleed.

Why Deer Antlers Break Off

• Accidents
• Weak Tines
• Poor Nutrition
• Buck Battles
• Post Growth – Breaking Off
• Too Vigorous Rubbing Velvet Off

When the bone breaks the interior is tough to describe. I would call it more porous on the inside. Kind of like maple or oak there is more open pores in the interior of the antler then on the outside leading to a softer interior. I hope that makes sense for those reading.

Growing Broken Antler / Sedated / Amputated

• Sedate Deer
• A tourniquet to stop Blood Flow
• Cut Off Antler
• Antiseptic
• Cauterize

Though old old antler is powdery. As for what it looks like from a distance, they look like broken branches till they move. Up close looks like well a broken antler. The edges are usually smooth or rounded unless it’s a fresh break.

Usually late fall after the rut to January February the deer shed their antler to conserve nutrients to survive the winter. Not long after the rodents get to them like squirrels’ mice porcupines etc. begin to eat the shed antlers.

What Happens if a Deer Breaks His Antler?

If a Buck breaks an antler after it has hardened it stays broken till it sheds.

If a Buck breaks or damages an antler during the growth stage (antler not deer) it can deform the antler’s development. During the development period of a Bucks antler growth, the antler is a soft tissue filled with blood. So, the breaking of an antler during that time can affect the health of the deer.

Freeing Bucks with Locked Antlers / Post Growth Stage

Bucks can get infections through the antlers during the growth period as there is an active blood supply going to the antler. After the antlers reach the max. growth for the year the blood supply is discontinued and the antler hardens to the bone-like state for the breeding season. Nothing other than it will grow back until next year. deer damage their antlers during the velvet period.

See Our Extensive Article – 7 Ways Deer Farmers Make Money

this I when they are most vulnerable. They get damaged in fights, hitting tree branches, etc. Once the antler is broken off that particular deer will have that blemish for the entire season.

Life Cycle of a Whitetail Buck

Some deer will only have one antler. Once the antlers fall in March. rodents like field mice chew them for their mineral content. However, if the deer lives to the next Spring it will sport new antlers. If things go well the next year’s antlers will not be damaged.

When a deer breaks its antler it’s kind of like a human chipping a tooth it just won’t grow back but it doesn’t really but it at a disadvantage compared to other deer except during mating season where success with a doe is measured in strength and antler size.

Which Parts of Deer Antlers Break Most Often?

There are few if any, wild game animals we know so much about as the white-tailed deer – that’s what makes it surprising when new information comes to light about this species with which we are fascinated.

A large sample of shed antlers collected from my research site in south-central Alabama provided a great opportunity to describe basic patterns of antler breakage in whitetails – a relatively simple yet startlingly overlooked facet of whitetail lore.

For decades deer antlers have been rigorously studied, and dozens of peer-reviewed scientific papers have been published on topics ranging from their nutrient and chemical composition to their supernaturally explosive growth rates and resulting implications for regenerative human medicine and cancer cures.

Yet, the simple patterns of antler breakage have been overlooked. In a study, approximately 30% of left antlers were broken in some way annually, a rate that was fairly stable across all 10 years of the study. We attribute the stability of annual antler breakage rates to the relatively stable nutritional level of the deer herd. However, since this study was done on a captive herd with an elevated buck age structure, this breakage rate may differ from a free-ranging population with a lower proportion of adult bucks.

Which Antler Tine is Least Likely to Break?

The G-2 antler tine (first one up from the “brow tine”) is least likely to break, with brow tines and G-3s and G-4s having approximately equal breakage rates

Structurally, the G-2 is usually the longest time and is recognized as the primary weapon on a buck’s antler. However, from a defensive perspective, antlers absorb competitor’s blows with the leading antler tines (G-3 and/or G-4) thus protecting the G 2.

Additionally, it is not difficult to imagine that some brow-tine damage occurs when deer exert enormous amounts of torque during rubbing. Main beams had similar rates of breakage as G-2 antler points. Though strictly “typical” shed antlers did not show greater breakage than antlers possessing non-typical or abnormal points, typical-frame points were about twice as prone to breakage as non-typical points.

Finally, by relating antler variables such as base circumference and a number of antler points to antler breakage, thin antlers with high numbers of antler points are most susceptible to breakage Based on our overall left-antler breakage rate of 30%, the percentage of individual bucks with at least one broken antler would be 51%.

That’s likely greater than for the majority of free-ranging populations because the study population was enclosed, and the sex ratio favored bucks. Given that you hunt free-ranging deer that probably have a different sex ratio, age structure and nutritional level than our study site, it’s not likely you’ll see the same rate of breakage among the shed antlers but you should see the same patterns we found as to which points and parts of the antler are most likely to break.

The next time you encounter a broken-up warrior of a buck in the woods, I hope you’ll have a better understanding of why and how he came to show his battle scars.

Deer / Cervid Farming / Profitability Table

Livestock Fencing Height Tables

Types of Deer for Deer Farming