White-tailed Deer

Deer antlers are among the fastest growing tissues in the animal kingdom, growing as much as an inch per day during peak antler growth. Bucks grow new antlers every year, beginning when the days begin lengthening (mid-March to mid-April). Antlers grow from the tip and are full of thousands of blood vessels. While they're growing, they are soft and covered in velvet until the antlers begin hardening into bone as day length begins to decrease in late summer. It takes about a month for the antlers to harden, starting mid-July and ending in mid-August, when the vevet dries up and the buck rubs it off. In 2013, our buck had fourteen points!