[ArcheryAddiction]

Well out doing a litle scouting tonight, and seen 10 deer in one of my fields, 4 young bucks and rest were does and kids. One of the small 6 pointers already lost all his velvet,actually he hasnt had velvet for about 3 weeks acording to trail cam pics. The one without velvet and another litle 6 pointer started walking towards me, got to withing 50 yards and they started to do a lilte lite sparring or playing i guess, First time i have seen this with my own eyes, I watched the bucks for about 45 minutes.

Im just wondering why one deer hasnt not had velvet for a few weeks now and all the rest of the bucks still do, something wrong with him or what

 

[Scoot]

Seems a bit early to me. Weird! Heard the same about a bull moose last week. Maybe they are switching over and all the nutrients are being devoted to getting ready for the winter. Not sure.

 

[Tobiquer]

Pretty early - I don't recall ever seeing one out of velvet in August.

 

[ArcheryAddiction]

im gonna go back tonight with the camera and see if i can get a few pictures. I think somehting must of happen to it or something i have trail cam pics of it 2-3 weekds ago without velvet.

 

[luckyluke15]

i saw two deer last night at the baseball fields off of melanson in dieppe. a doe and a nice 6pts and it also had lost his velvet .

 

[nbbucks]

I've seen them in the last week of August as well.

 

[Axeman]

Hey guys....what's the big surprise? Buck deer at our latitude harden their antlers in August. I think we talked about this in a previous post -Most antler mass is accumulated in June and July. Growth stops then and calcification starts in early August. Remember, a deer's system is keyed into daylength, and we all know daylength is shortening now quite rapidly. It's this fast loss of daylight that causes deer to produce melatonin, and this is what triggers a buck to start producing testosterone. The big "shot" of testosterone is what causes antlers to harden and velvet to shed - so we shouldn't be surprised that there are hardened antlers the last few weeks of August.

Also - like anything else in the animal kingdom, every critter does not breed, grow antlers, yard, etc. all on exactly the same day. There are always a few that go early, the numbers increase to a peak, and then they trickle off towards the end. We shouldn't be surprised when we see the initial trickling of these events when some individuals start things happening....or the late bloomers that are at the tail end - this is all quite normal.