Axis Horns

[TCB]

I posted a couple weeks back about a nice velvet axis I took on a buddies ranch. I meant to follow up with a word of caution on grabbing the horns to drag them out or load them this year.

The freeze absolutely created damage to the velvet horned axis. I've seen pics with horns breaking mid antler from frost bite. I grabbed mine as low on the base as I could and felt a little bit of crackling. Another guy with us shot a cull buck that was hard horned. When we grabbed the antlers to load, we definitely heard cracking in the hard horn.

Just wanted to pass along the PSA. I bet we see multiple stories this year of antlers broken in weird places, snapped horns when the animal hits the ground, etc.

[Bucknaked]

I was concerned about this! When I hunted a month ago, I saw a lot of bucks with burnt looking velvet! Thanks for the heads up!

[AntlerCollector]

You should never grab velvet antlers anyway. Yes the freeze definitely damaged antlers this year. My wife shot a nice one in full velvet. You just have to be very careful and try not to handle them too much. Lift the deer by the head and not the antlers.

[AntlerCollector]

I was concerned about this! When I hunted a month ago, I saw a lot of bucks with burnt looking velvet! Thanks for the heads up!

That burnt look is the result of frostbite.

[Bucknaked]

Like this one from last month

[PondPopper]

A lot of good bucks will get shot as culls this year because some folks do not realize what the freeze did. If he looks deformed let him live. He will shed and be fine next year. Some seem unaffected though but many are not.