Deer antler

We live in an area that affords us the opportunity to watch various wildlife pass by outside our dinning room window.  I’ve installed bird feeders around the rhododendron bush and we often deposit our rice, bread and vegetable leftovers there for the critters.  Our most exotic animals have been a porcupine, which nearly stumbled upon me one evening before slowly backing away, and a family of turkeys.  There has been a mountain lion in the neighborhood but we didn’t see her.  Mostly, we’re visited by birds, a couple of squirrels, a rat (I think is now dead), the occasional raccoon and deer.

The deer have grown from spotted fawns to antlered adolescents.  We’ve watched as they became segregated because of their genders and found entertainment in the way the males act increasingly antagonistic towards one another.  This year one male adolescent sprout his first antlers but they were small and odd shaped and we wondered aloud if there was something “a little odd about that one there”.    

Before bed I spend about twenty minutes reading which I do outside, under our carport and in a fairly small cone of light from the back door.  I get a little spooked at times because I hear the movement of things outside my sphere.  The other night was one such night.  Though I knew the sounds I heard were deer pillaging my birdfeeder, the option for flight remained a trigger’s breath away.

The next day, after spreading some seed, I saw an antler on the ground.  The not-quite-right buck had knocked it off (probably on my bird feeder).  Now, I am not proposing that he lost his antler because it wasn’t screwed on properly.  I know that deer shed their antlers each year and then grow them back.  However, I didn’t know any real particulars when it came to the growing and shedding of antlers so I decided to take a look. 

Beside way too many pictures of people posing with disem(deer)bodied antlers and the number of buck baiting products which popped up, I found some interesting things.  I learned that the deer that travel through our yard are most likely mule deer of the family Cervidae.  The areas on their brow  from which the antlers grow are calledpedicles.  I also learned that the nutrient rich velvet surrounding the antlers as they grow contains Growth Factor-1 which is similar to insulin and it has been used for about 2,000 years for its presumed curative properties.  Some of the images of deer shedding their velvet are ghastly but I find the process fascinating.  Imagine men’s faces shedding their beards in a bloody layer to reveal a hardened crust of secondary sexual characteristic face bone and you’d have an idea.

Since this is the prime time of year for antler shedding, a process regulated by seasonal changes in sunlight, there’s no need for alarm regarding Goofy’s noggin but the irregular shape his antler may be an indicator of something wrong with his health.

Tell you what, I sure wish I found some porcupine spines.  That would be pretty neat.

Enjoy the Show!