I was talking to my son about a Weird Racked Deer I missed earlier.      :rolleyes:  . I was wondering about the Weird Racks You Guys & Gals had seen or had pics of???  

Sounds like due to an injury while in velvet. Often, bucks break a tine or main beam, but the velvet acts like a sock or splint and holds it together, so it mends in the broken/bent way. This also accounts for most "club" antlers, where a big ball forms at the tip of a tine or broken beam, under velvet. Genetic nontypicals are generally more symmetrical and account for the "freaks" with large numbers of weird tines. They're all far more interesting than mill-run "perfect" antlers, I think.

I have one on my wall that i will take a pick of and post on here but the one side is prety heavy and palmated but the other goes up and around like normal but when it gets out there a little ways it splits into four tines one up one the the side one down and one to the other side.  He had been hit by a car or something and his back opposite leg was all seized up at the knee joint. He was a bruzer though and wasn't a afraid to let the other deer around know he was up for puttin bruzes on them.

I just passed up a buck tonight....little guy with a small two inch fork on the left, and a literal button on the right....
I am not sure if it is true, but I was told a deer wounded one one side will develop a "abnormal" antler on the opposite side the following year.....anyone know if there is truth to that?

I've heard the same. in fact years ago I shot a buck with a normal 4point rack on the left side and a spiral 2 points on the right side. He had a club front left foot, likely from a gun wound the year before. So that whole bi-lateral assymetry thing good be true.

It was the rear leg on the opposite side of the funky antler on the deer I was talking about.

My wife saw a decent 8 pt tonight but he never gave an opportunity. He had a normal 4 point on one side and a pretty much upside down mangled 4 point on the other. She was calling him "drop time" all night to herself, but like I said she never got the chance to "drop" him.

I love bucks with funky racks. Yes I have heard that many times it is because of an injury but I also think that some are genetic. On my mountain we seem to have some funky genetics because there are several deer the past few years that have all had normal racks on the left side and the right side seems normal but folded down almost over the right eye. This is deer of all different age groups, so it wouldn't suprise me if there was an original buck that had some weird genetics that he passed around. What do you guys think?

In the book,The King of Deer,by Rodney Marburger,he says leg injuries cause antler deformations. A front leg wound,opposite antler deformed. Rear leg,same side deformed. But in your case,Dead I would think it might be genetics because there is so many.

We have in the genetics here locally a one horn thing going on. I killed a buck about 10 years ago that had one antler with four points and his head was smooth on the other side.

Do you think you get lure those genetic freaks in by playing "Dueling Banjos"?

the only thing wierd about the bucks I have shot is how much they shrink after I shoot them. Sometimes they even loose points (the big 10 becomes a small 8)

QuoteOriginally posted by Jmatt1957:
the only thing wierd about the bucks I have shot is how much they shrink after I shoot them. Sometimes they even loose points (the big 10 becomes a small 8)

I think we all have that disease.