When doe's the bucks in your area shed their horns.

[Fly Tier]

Here in my area they start shedding the end of Feb to the first of Mar.But I have a friend that went down south Arkansas on a shotgun hunt he was able to hunt buck or doe.The first day he shot a doe and when he went to the deer he seen it was a buck that lost it's horns already.

[Kevin]

Same for North Arkansas, end of February and March. It happens over a 2-3 week span. That's pretty general though. A buck that is malnourished, suffers from genetic defects, injury, etc. can vary quite a bit earlier or later.

[dburl]

 I've saw deer and got pictures of deer as late as early march with both antlers but , for some reason , the last two years they've been dropping them starting in the first week of December. Last year I sat in a stand overlooking a field on December 5 on my deer lease. 5 bucks came in together at one end ; one really nice one and two medioker ones. I moved my stand to that end the next day and got settled in for the evening. The 5 deer came into the field about 60 yards from me and the biggest one and one of the other descent  ones had shed both sides. I continued to hunt that for the next few days and within the next 4 days all 5 bucks had dropped either both sides or at least one side. I did end up tagging out on a really nice buck on my farm on December 28 ; both sides still hooked on pretty solid. Wierd how some keep them longer. Kevin probably hit the nail on the head when he was talking about their nutrition, especially after the rut.

 This pic is from my lease here in NW Arkansas a week before Christmas.

[ArkansasSloughboy]

From a natural selection stand point it seems it would be advantageous to get the horns off your head as quickly as possible once they've done their purpose. Add in decades of hunting pressure which ends up being many generations of deer and hunters can cause natural selection. It is much more likely for a buck that has lost it's antlers or just one side to survive a hunter than one sporting a nice rack. So the genetics of quick horn droppers will begin to saturate the gene pool. Anybody think that's possible?

[Kevin]

Well, natural selection can happen in just a few generations.

Very interesting concept.

[DeerSlayer]

I can't believe they are shedding that early in your area. Sloughboy that is a good theory, I bet it is very possible.