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High acorn crop

Impossible to say. It should help, but you never know. I thought the total acorn failure and drought - which dried up even the natural habitat - in 2022 would result in terrible antler growth this last year, but that didn't happen. Antler development was on par with normal or even a little above normal this last summer.
 
As I understand it antler growth is largely dictated by mineral stored in the skeletal system, and isn't necessarily a direct result of current nutrition. The thought is that it prevents antler growth from detracting from the animal's health or ability to survive. On the flip, bad health or healing from injury can rob those minerals from antler growth, but not the other way around.

Unrelated but it's one really strong reason I believe mineral sites are so attractive to bucks, and do in fact contribute to antler growth. A buck licking minerals this summer won't see bigger antlers this fall because of it. But he is replenishing the mineral stores in his bones that are allocated toward antler growth in the future. I don't necessarily believe mineral sites allow buck to grow bigger antlers. But I do believe they allow the buck some supplement to keep his antler growing reserves full. While he may not necessarily grow bigger antlers because of the mineral, he won't be as likely to grow a stunted rack in tough nutritional years or injury. That's just a personal thought, not gospel. It's why I believe mineral sites are so incredibly attractive to deer but also there has been no evidence to show mineral sites produce larger antlers.

Sorry to get so far off topic.
 
I've heard Grant Wood say that an acorn has never added a single inch to an antler...and I get it... acorns are not dropping during the antler growing season...so do acorns directly increase antler inches?...maybe not?...but it makes sense that a buck who has plently of acorns and nutrition going into winter would have a better opportunity at expressing his genetics during the summer verses a run down malnutritioned buck.
I have no scientific evidence to back it up...but it makes sense.
 
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Ski said:
As I understand it antler growth is largely dictated by mineral stored in the skeletal system, and isn't necessarily a direct result of current nutrition. The thought is that it prevents antler growth from detracting from the animal's health or ability to survive. On the flip, bad health or healing from injury can rob those minerals from antler growth, but not the other way around.

Unrelated but it's one really strong reason I believe mineral sites are so attractive to bucks, and do in fact contribute to antler growth. A buck licking minerals this summer won't see bigger antlers this fall because of it. But he is replenishing the mineral stores in his bones that are allocated toward antler growth in the future. I don't necessarily believe mineral sites allow buck to grow bigger antlers. But I do believe they allow the buck some supplement to keep his antler growing reserves full. While he may not necessarily grow bigger antlers because of the mineral, he won't be as likely to grow a stunted rack in tough nutritional years or injury. That's just a personal thought, not gospel. It's why I believe mineral sites are so incredibly attractive to deer but also there has been no evidence to show mineral sites produce larger antlers.

Sorry to get so far off topic.
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Very good info as usual from you. Thank you.
 
Expecting to see a shift soon. All this coming rain acorns are either gonna sprout or rot making them far less palatable. Deer will be forced to spend more time on native browse and food plots. This shift normally would have already happened and we would have been seeing more deer on plots but the bumper crop of acorns and the dry weather has really changed things this year.
 
Popcorn said:
Expecting to see a shift soon. All this coming rain acorns are either gonna sprout or rot making them far less palatable. Deer will be forced to spend more time on native browse and food plots. This shift normally would have already happened and we would have been seeing more deer on plots but the bumper crop of acorns and the dry weather has really changed things this year.
Click to expand...
Strange, but at my place, with more acorns than I've ever seen, and the highest level of natural browse we've ever produced, the deer never left the plots. They were in them in September, October, November and December, and they're still in them now. Never seen anything like it.
 
BSK said:
Strange, but at my place, with more acorns than I've ever seen, and the highest level of natural browse we've ever produced, the deer never left the plots. They were in them in September, October, November and December, and they're still in them now. Never seen anything like it.
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Wow!
Our numbers are still way down in Ky and Tn.
If looks as if our population is 1/3 of what I know it to be. They have been dispersed on acorns all season…
 
BSK said:
Strange, but at my place, with more acorns than I've ever seen, and the highest level of natural browse we've ever produced, the deer never left the plots. They were in them in September, October, November and December, and they're still in them now. Never seen anything like it.
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It's funny to hear you say that. Just when you think the data suggests what deer might do, they do the "wrong" thing.
 
Popcorn said:
Expecting to see a shift soon. All this coming rain acorns are either gonna sprout or rot making them far less palatable. Deer will be forced to spend more time on native browse and food plots. This shift normally would have already happened and we would have been seeing more deer on plots but the bumper crop of acorns and the dry weather has really changed things this year.
Click to expand...
I've been expecting this shift now for weeks. Too late now, but agree, "should" be happening.

I opened up the stomach on a harvested doe this past Friday, Jan. 5, (right where the hunter had dropped it in a large 8-yr-old pine tract).

The stomach was chock full of two items: Chewed acorns & honeysuckle.

Seeing the stomach contained so much honeysuckle, I started looking around closer at the ground and was amazed at just how much young honeysuckle had recently germinated in this large pine woods. No wonder the hunters haven't been seeing much in the nearby fields.

One other thing of interest:
Despite nearby winter wheat & cornfields, I couldn't find a single kernel of corn nor a single sprig of wheat.
Just acorns & honeysuckle.
 
Ski said:
As I understand it antler growth is largely dictated by mineral stored in the skeletal system, and isn't necessarily a direct result of current nutrition. The thought is that it prevents antler growth from detracting from the animal's health or ability to survive. On the flip, bad health or healing from injury can rob those minerals from antler growth, but not the other way around.

Unrelated but it's one really strong reason I believe mineral sites are so attractive to bucks, and do in fact contribute to antler growth. A buck licking minerals this summer won't see bigger antlers this fall because of it. But he is replenishing the mineral stores in his bones that are allocated toward antler growth in the future. I don't necessarily believe mineral sites allow buck to grow bigger antlers. But I do believe they allow the buck some supplement to keep his antler growing reserves full. While he may not necessarily grow bigger antlers because of the mineral, he won't be as likely to grow a stunted rack in tough nutritional years or injury. That's just a personal thought, not gospel. It's why I believe mineral sites are so incredibly attractive to deer but also there has been no evidence to show mineral sites produce larger antlers.

Sorry to get so far off topic.
Click to expand...
Consistent nutrition can be a factor too. A hard winter with very poor available food can impact a deers recovery going into spring, when their antlers are starting to grow. I think that critical time in their nutrition needs may play a bigger role in their growth than the previous years acorns.
 

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