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A quite suitable time to talk a little about the development of the bucks’ antlers

 

Some young bucks still wear the pencil-like stick antlers that will soon be shrugged off. The beginning of adult antler growth shows in the photo. This sign of male pride will achieve its full dimensions in March-April for the older deer, for the younger in the beginning of May at the latest. The antlers are covered with so called velvet, a strange formation with a great amount of blood vessels that nourishes the growth of the antlers and that has no similarity with the regular skin of the deer.

 

From a human logic point of view there should be good use for antlers in the deer flocks in winter to head off enemies; in that season the roe deer moving in flocks are very vulnerable. But nature has instead designated the antlers for the early-summer territory marking and for parading in the mating period; real contests of strength using antlers seldom take place between bucks.

 

From the shape and size of the antlers the age, and even the health of the bucks can be judged. The wide-spread belief that the number of pins marks the age of the animal is not true. Really beautiful and much branched antlers are worn by mature, strong and healthy bucks and they are a splendid sight. Most common are the three-pin antlers; their owners are usually four-year-old bucks but this is no infallible rule.

 

The development of antlers is governed by two hormones: sexual and growth hormones.