I'd love to see it

The answer is EVERYTHING!!

But for real, is there anything in there about antler development in general, especially and how injuries/changes in hormones can affect it? In the United States when this happens we call them "cactus bucks" because... their antlers look nothing like cacti, I don't know where the name came from lol.

Antlers dropping, pg. 71

For all mammals goes the same rule, after which all bones are overgrown by skin or dies off/falls off.
Thus after a while even the antlers fall off. Why this happens after a relatively long time timeframe? We have to think of the discovery about hormones and their capability in changing life processes and we can figure out that we mustn't consider antlers as is, but as a secondary genital, which rythm of growth is connected with the reproductive cycle.

Instantaneous falling off of antlers thus would not make sense, for the deer requires them as weapons for a long timeframe. Thus the antlers have to remain in the deer's pedicle so they can fullfil their duty.
(pedicle is part of the deer's head where the antlers are attached)
We know that in all phases of deer antler growth, and their additional growth, the hormones have an unusual affect on them.
The described effects of castrations confirm this well enough. For the loss of testicles in grown antlers causes the premature loss of them. Thus it can be concluded that this organ's extracts are likely a contributor in preventing loss of antlers for as long untill they are no longer required.

When this effect wears off, the antlers fall off.
With the lessening of secretion of sexual hormones in the bloodflow, after the rut, on the pedicles comes the effect that prevents further growth.


Differance in timespawn of antler falloff in a young red deer. (he is 3 tined i think)

The dead tissue (antler) is connected to the live pedicle are connected with a layer of live cells with a waning metabolism. And as an intro to the falloff of the antlers, this layer of cells gets heavily 'blood filled' and changes into big cells with thin cellural membranes. With this the connecton between the antler and the pedicle weakens, thus even a small bump or even the antler's own weight causes it to fall off.
The creation of the enlarged cells happens from rim to center, thus the outer rim of looks like a 'demarking' line. Inside the antler is still strongly connected. It takes only a little time fotr the antler to fall off. And when that happens is the antler growth cycle complete.

The time of antler falloff can however be predicted, but a margin of error has also been uncovered. So, antlers cfall off later in younger deer, which also grew to it's fullest later than say, an older deer's.
This deer's antlers fall off already in early march, exceptionally in late february, while somne a few weeks later.
In april we can already see herds of stags , some of which are already growing new antlers, while others still carry their old racks.

Different populations of deer do not vary much in their antler fall off times. With old deer, the antlers fall off simultaneously or with a few hour differance. But with younger deer it often happens this, that one antler falls off and the other falls off only after multiple days.
This that one antler stays in a deer, on a stronger deer he may tilt his head, or when resting, lay the antler side against the ground. Regardless of that, they quickly get used to the imbalance and hold their head normally thereafter.

With headshaking and stabbing the remaining antler against into soiul or snow, the deer tries to get rid of it sooner. Known are examples with deer whom heavily damadge their pedicle this way.


There is no rule in which antler falls off sooner, it's usually not always the heavier antler, as how it's often told.
With old, mature deer the antlers fall off at the same time in the year. In young deer, this is different. ON the time when the antler falls off the weather also takes effect.
After mild winters the antlers fall off sooner, while in normal and colder winters there is no differance. This questions are clearer if we observe and collect data throughout the years and various different specimens.


the bump differance on a young and old deer.

With the help of R. Augustin, a master observer and feeder, Marienteichbaude by Bad Harzburgu, Vorreyer has documented the following datums:




From this excrept we can find 'alarm readyness' for certain termines which hunters, and sadly antler enthusiasts use to collect antler falloffs.
A very mild winter in 1956/57 hs caused a very big change in termin while a very bad winter in 1955/56 and a mild winter in 1954/55 hasn't caused any significant change between eachother.

Unusually early dates for antler falloff were found to occur on the mentioned feeding ground. 28th of January, 1974, the antlers already fell off from an older, strong deer, who already threw off his antlers on the 3rd of january the next year. Sadly the next year this deer caused a traffic incident and was it's victim.
One, slightly shifted termin in the year of 1075 could mean that a deer could've thrown off his antlers twice a year.
Unusual termins we could also attribute to high calory dense winter-foods.

If we have chance to observe deer in their feeding grounds, the latest on the day till their antler fall off, we can see that the skin right under the burr is already torn. A dark, visible crack is a sure sign that a deer is right before the time when hte antlers are going to fall off.

When the antlers fall off the deer act diufferently. Some deer barely change at all and don't react at all. But I saw deer, which reacted to antler fall off with quick running or have quickly turned or ran in circles for multiple laps.
Deer often sniff the antlers that fell off with great interest, equally so the other deer in the herd get interested.
Observed was also that whenthe antler fell of, the pedicle was coloured deep red, from the previously mentioned blood saturation of the cell lining.. Deer often sniffed this location.
Part of the pedicle still stays on the antler however.


A small bit about the pedicle which remains on the antler. Often one hears that one can guess the gae of a deer by the part that stays behind and even on the similarity between different antlers. But this is not a reliable rule of thumb.
However, without contesting, an older deer's remains flat and rounded and flattned, while a younger's deer is more convex. However even here there are exceptions.
In the picture of the antler stubs. Left are the antlers of a 12 year old stag, right the antlers of a 5 years old stag. There is not much differance, however we can see that the burr on both deer is poorly developd and we can guess that they must be relatives.

-vess stopped translating, will correct this later- -it's just some comaprisons about the pedicle and burr between different age group deers-

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