It isn't the antler that hurts, it's the skin at the base. It was time for the antlers to shed anyway. During fall and early winter after velvet is shed, male white-tailed deer will have hardened antlers. Like other deer, reindeer shed their antlers annually. I had a buck who was rubbing a tree last winter. White-tailed deer may grow deformed antlers as a result of an injury. When they shed their antlers it does hurt. Antlers usually fall off on their own, but deer can sometimes get a bit aggressive with rubbing and butting trees or other deer. It takes a few weeks for the tissue to break up, and then the antlers shed. The main purpose of antlers is to attract female deer for mating. A small percentage of does grow antlers each year, too. I'd compare it to loosing a tooth when you were a kid. Edit again - When a deer loses it antler, it can hurt if it is done by premature contact injuries. The males will spar with each other using their antlers to establish dominance and claim females. and 1 kg (2.2 lbs) is more common. When the rut is ending the buck’s testosterone goes way down, which makes the antler tissue break up. Most ungulates shed their antlers. Figure 6. “Does it hurt the deer?” asked Lauren Townsend and Jordan Mousley. Since the velvet is the only source of nutrients and oxygen for the antlers, once the velvet is shed the antlers die. After an antler is done growing, the velvet is shed. It’s no secret that most of us who hunt love antlers, and the ability to collect them without expending a single round or tag is an alluring prospect and quite easy if you get out at the right time. When many novices to deer hunting find out about hunting for discarded antlers in the offseason, the first question they ask themselves is when do deer shed their antlers? Leg, pedicle and velvet injuries can all lead to antler deformations. These does have enough testosterone to grow antlers but generally not enough to harden them, so they usually remain in velvet. Deer’s antlers are honeycombed bone tissue. a cartilage ‘model’ is turned to bone); they may reach 90 cm (3 ft.) in length and weigh 3 kg (6.6 lbs) each, although 70 cm (2 ft. 4 in.) A “cactus buck” is an older deer with low testosterone levels that doesn’t shed his antlers at all. Such as getting the antler hooked in a tree limb. And “rubber antlers,” made of more cartilage than bone, rarely lose their velvet and can bend like rubber when wet. Figure 7. During mating season, when the antlers are growing, the male deer displays his antlers to a female deer and uses them to become the dominant male. A new set will often attempt to grow on top of the old, resembling a cactus. It hurts worse for them because it is a larger area than a tooth but it is the same general idea, so to speak, no exactly how humans loose teeth. 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