Antler growth and accidents?

[Tominator]

the only thing i can tell you is something i witnessed 2 years ago while bowhunting.

i saw a smallish deer limping about 100 yards off. as it walked closer i could see that it's back right leg was broken. the deer was pretty emaciated, skinny. i noticed it was a buck. it walked about 10 yards from my stand. i could see that the right side of his rack was a perfect 4 points in a normal configuration. the left side, however, was really goofy. it was essentially one knot of antler with about 6 or 7 4" to 5" inch spikes coming out of the knot. weird. it would appear that the injury on the right side of his body produced a funky antler on the left.

[buckee]

Here is a good example of what kind of unussual antler growth can happen after an injury.
My buddy Steve took this one out in 2001. It was a mature buck, about 41/2 years old. It had a front leg that had been busted and had healed up about 6 inches shorter than the other front leg. It also had an injured back leg that was partially healed.
You can tell by the size of this blacktail, that it was no youngster and should have had a more impressive rack.

[bulldawg]

I have heard the same thing about the rack on the opposite side being effected by an injury. And it makes sense. If someone runs into the side of a buck with his vehicle, the opposite side of his rack will usually hit whatever he gets pushed into... [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] .
But seriously, I read that it was studied years ago, and the conclusion they came to was as stated.

[buckee]

LMBO@ Bulldawg. .....Your sharp today bud..LOL [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Mathews XT Man]

Lets stop this nonsense of comparing animals to humans; there are none!! bUT TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION, YES WITH DEER AN INJURY VERY MUCH WILL DEFORM AN ANTLER. I had a deer here that had a leg injury, and the opposite side looked like a Texas longhorn. We watched him for three years, and he grew the very same rack all three years. I even have the sheds.A bowhunter shot him the next season. [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[sureshot]

I was just reading this in a magazine a few weeks ago! They stated that deer in certain areas are more likly to have non-typ antlers and that is from genes, and the food, the more nutrition the more antlers a deer will grow, whether it is in a typ matter of strait tines, or a tine with stickers! When a deer grows one side totally wierd, like buckees, or like one a buddy shot a few years back with a fishhook on one side and a typ 5 pt on the other side. This is becouse of damage to the opposit side of the body! I will try to find the article and post it,[It has a pic of a big mule deer with huge right side and the left is just a really small spike with a couple stickers and below it has a pic of the right front leg, with a ball[healed bone] on it] I remember the pic but not the mag LOL!

[too_pointer]

This must mean that the bucks in my area have been injured on both sides, cause both their horns are funky. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
too be serious though I would like to understand why this happens.
too_pointer