Don’t bring your head to an antler fight… or, how does that saying go?
Nature is one of the most unexpecting, unpredictable places.
As humans we tend to like to generalize things to how they are supposed to be scientifically. When animals stray out of the norm, we are shocked and can’t keep our eyes off of it. But, really the more you pay attention there’s things constantly happening that don’t fit into the normal way of nature.
Every year male deer or bucks, grow antlers during the summer months to prepare for the rut. Antler size depends on a few factors, mainly age and how healthy the deer is.
They use these antlers along with their body size to assert their dominance and win the right to breed the females in a certain area. These bucks will have battles with others to see who is the most dominant. The winning buck gets the right to breed with the does.
Bucks will hold their antlers until the winter months, generally the large shift in weather mixed with the end of the rut will cause them to lose their antlers. If the winter is easy they may hold them for a bit longer.
It’s rare to see a buck lose its antlers early, but anything can happen out there.
This video shows a deer pinning its ears straight back, generally their sign of aggression, as it approaches a healthy eight-point buck. The deer approaching noticeably once had antlers, but is now just sporting spots where they once were on his head.
He clearly already shed them off…
But, he still goes in for the fight.
The other buck accepts the challenge at the go head-to-head. Almost immediately the buck with no antlers realizes it’s a massive mismatch due to his disadvantage and takes off for higher ground.
It will be a hard ol’ rut for that fella…
