mufan

always heard that darkness of rack indicated age but never really questioned it. How do you determine the age of a deer?

Jimmy S

Tha age of deer is determine very accurately by the teeth.

KSbowman

Genetics does play a role in how big a bucks rack will get. As the other guys said there is a point in a bucks life where his rack starts to decline, from aging mature bucks that have been shot and by studying live animals i would say bucks most generally reach their peak antler growth at 5 1/2 yrs of age. This will change in different geographic regions due to resources and population structure. If you have good genes in your area (meaning trophy sized racks and big bodies) then you probably wont have to worry much about bad genes. The more dominant bucks (higher quality genes) out compete subordinate bucks minimizing their chances to breed. Where you find more bucks with "bad genes" mating is when you have an over abundance of does. A dominant buck cannot defend a herem of 20 does as easily as a herem of 5-10, resulting in subordinate bucks gaining more chances at breeding. The sole purpose of a bucks rack is to gain the possibility of reproducing. The bigger, more symmetrical and ornamented the rack then the higher the chance of reproducing or gaining fitness. Fitness in a biological sense pertains to how many matings an individual has had as well as # of offspring produced.

Red Lion

Every time I read this thread title, I am inclined to think of a different kind of rack!

KSbowman

TBone....I dont know where you heard deer can live up to 20 yrs, but that is rediculous. In extreme cases deer might live 10 years. Most deer in the wild dont make it to 6 1/2 or 7 1/2 years old.
Also you cant age a deer by how dark his rack is....rack color is a result of when the velvet is rubbed off, what the rack is rubbed on, diet and geographic region.

npaden

If you want some documented facts instead of speculation you might want to read the following article.

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/publications/pwdpubs/media/pwd_rp_w7000_0827.pdf

It is a 168 page paper summarizing 26 years of research on the subject.

The short answer is that YES, bad genetics can prevent big racks.

Also, there is a documented case of a 23 year old whitetail doe. It was a penned deer (not wild) but I think that still counts. This was an exceptionally long life and most live 10 years or less.

Also, if you read the paper it is pretty much documented that on most deer their antlers start to decline after 5 or 6 years.

Thereare a lot of pictures in the article and most of it is just references and stuff. The meat of the article is under 50 pages. It is interesting reading IMO.

Texas Hog Hunter

Nice research NPADEN.

outdoorslover

I think a deer with bad genetics will get reasonably big if it has proper nutrition. Obviously, it's not gonna get as big as a good genetics deer but it will still reach reasonable size. I think it's rare for a deer to not get pretty big with age if it has good food sources and nutrition.

I agree that the three things that grow big racks are age, genetics, and nutrition.I believe that nutrition is the number one leader though. I've come to that conclusion. Deer with better habitat will get bigger than deer that are overpopulatedor in a tougher environment.

I'm still learning and am not an expert.

IL-Cornfed

It is somewhat surprising how many misconseptions there are about whitetail and their lives, especially considering that they are Americas top game animal !!!

It's pretty well known in modern whitetail science that genetics are MUCH better in most areas than whatwas once believed. It'sprettyuch right in line with WHY the vast majorityof biologists do NOT suggest shooting spikes. In fact, the TWO most importantaspectsare AGE and NUTRITION and it has been proven time and time again that most deer folks pass off as being genetically inferiorsimply lack the proper nutrition first and then age to reach "trophy" proportions. Genetics is simply something that no one can really control so there is certainly no point in stressing much over it. Over rated and misunderstood.

KSbowman

npaden....I agree too many people go off of speculations....I dont have hard facts to back up what i say but i can tell you this in the spring i will have a bachelors degree in wildlife Bio. so i do have a very good idea what i am talking about.