Don’t get excited, I’m talking about deer antlers.
And as I was filtering through my hundreds of shots of our buck the other day….
I thought some of you city people might get a kick out of this.
After the fall rut….. (read: deer orgy, where size does matter) ….. the buck will drop his then useless horns.
It’s a slow process that sometimes takes all winter. The blood supply is cut off and they slowly loosen. You often see bucks with one side hanging crookedly… and they’ll rub against trees, fence posts, picnic tables or whatever is around to knock them off.
When this happens, it does look a little bizarre.
And painful, though they assure me it’s not.
But how do the proverbial ‘they’ know?
I doubt anything has fallen off of them lately.
It certainly doesn’t look like fun to me.
I didn’t know that. I also will never understand how anyone can look at something so beautiful and just, you know, shoot at it. But each to their own, eh?
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I can’t either.
And I never will.
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Wow. I thought they were lifelong things.
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Nope. They drop them every winter and everyone goes scrambling in the woods to find them.
He looks ridiculous when they start growing back. Stay tuned.
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Amazing what men go through for you women–even the poor deers!!
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For us? Or for a little something something…?
😉
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I was going to ask if you have any antlers laying around but I guess you don’t. LoL
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This guy shed his across the street… the farming neighbor found them and was thrilled. We feed him all year but he gives them his antlers. That’s just wrong!
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I was just about to ask, who is “they?” Are you becoming the Deer Whisperer? Or is it telepathic? Inquiring minds want to know.
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The all seeing and all knowing they.
Your guess is as good as mine….
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I did not know that. Looks like a mighty painful way to end deer rutting season.
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I know, right?
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I bet dropping those antlers actually feels good to them, like an itch than has finally stopped aggravating them, a weight gone as a bonus. The result looks a bit gruesome, though.
Antler sheds are prized here, too, especially from elk, used for carvings and furniture (think lamp stands, coat hangers). And dog chews. My dogs don’t find them enticing, thankfully, because they go for $10-20 each for a 4-6 inch length!
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They’re popular here as well for carvings, hat racks etc. I always think it’s ironic that just as they get used to them, they lose them and then have to get used to not having them. It would drive me nuts.
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Too close. They come to the garden to feed. Sorry no they are not really welcome. Out in the woods and the wild they are pretty. In the garden they are as much trouble as a woodchuck or an armadillo. So so on using them for a clothes rack.
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We have absolutely no problem with that. While they come to raid the fallen apples and the bird feeders, we’ve never had them touch our gardens. And we have a 65 acre organic vegetable farm across the road. That’s a veritable buffet they’ve never bothered either.
😃
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