velvet antlers

meako

meako

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Some clown shot & injured a feral Rusa buck near my place. The poor thing was left to die slowly.I'm told by the neighbours it was shot with a .22 . Not enough stopping power for a deer this size I would think.
Bit worried because my kids play in the bush & theres a low brow with a gun shooting illegally at things. This buck has 3 points but still covered with velvet & soft to the touch so not quite cooked yet. Ive removed them from the head & stuck them on the back fence . Will they be any good once the flies & ants have done their work?
cheers
meako
 
It's hard to say, since they were taken during the middle of their growing time. Once the velvet rots off, the antlers inside won't look like regular antlers. The racks you normally see are after velvet has dried and been worn off by rubbing and scraping against trees and brush. Which, in the course of doing that, puts that nice polish on the antlers.

So, I really can't say. Do some searching on the internet and see if you can find where someone else has taken antlers in velvet and what they did with them.
 
Deer do not do a lot of rubbing to shed velvet. for the most part it falls off on it's own and what rubbing they do does not affect their antlers.
we have an early bow season here in B.C. Canada, beginning Sept. 1st and i have got deer with velvet still on the antlers. it eventually rots off and underlying antler is "normal" but paler in colour.
roland
 
thanks for the answers-i googled it & learned that the thrashing & rubbing of the antlers stains them .-I've also got a theory that they do it to enhance their size with lots of weed & shredded bark hanging off the antlers - .
 
At this time of the year the antlers will be very soft and porous.....I don't think they will be usable for handles, etc. Some kind of lowlife you have over there...unfortunately they are everywhere.
 
I had a look at them today on the back fence & they seem to have lost a lot of the fresh sponginess . They are hard underneath & there is that gnarly texture. They are about 18inches long. Maybe a hat rack.
 
They just need time for the insides to finish calcifying, keep an eye on them. Squirrels like to chew on antlers for the nutrients.
 
Quote: "i googled it & learned that the thrashing & rubbing of the antlers stains them"
yes, that's the accepted hunting lore, but i don't think it is correct. once velvet is off, they darken from exposure to air and changes to the antler surface now that the blood vessels that make up the velvet are no longer feeding into the bony antler.
a very nice 8 point Mule deer rack which initially was fully covered in velvet has been hanging on my woodshed for about 20+ years. as the velvet split and eventually deteriorated, the underlying antler was initially pale and became darker with time, but now is lighter colored again from sun bleaching. there was no rubbing on vegetation.
roland
 
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