This spike buck and doe came to visit us at the pasture fence this morning.I was going to write a little bit about what causes spike bucks but it appears to be a very controversial subject!
The latest information I could find was a ten year study done in a five county area in South Texas by Dr. James C. Kroll and Ben H. Koerth of the Institute for White-tailed Deer Management & Research at Stephen F. Austin State University.
Dr. Kroll noted that social pressure has been shown to have a significant impact on antler growth and that all previous studies had been done on penned animals.
Their landmark study concluded that whitetail bucks do not reach maturity until four years of age. Bucks had no significant difference in antler measurement by the age of 4-1/2 years, no matter what the buck started out with in his first year. Genetics appears to be the least important of all the factors effecting antler development.
No comments:
Post a Comment