Question on antler growth

[ohiosam]

Often when reading threads someone will make a statement like "he'll be a lot bigger next year". Just curious is there a rule of thumb about how much a rack might improve from say 2.5 to 3.5 or 3.5 to 4.5? Maybe a percentage, like you can expect 10% or 25% more at certain ages. I know this would probably vary by age, I'd expect young deer have higher percentage of improvement. I also know outside factors such as nutrition and health play an important part.

[TheCream]

I'm no biologist, so I can't give you a percentage of growth from year to year. However, I can tell you the jumps from 2.5 to 3.5 and 3.5 to 4.5 can be pretty significant. I have had deer I followed from 2.5 to 3.5 that apperared to go from roughly 100" class deer to 125-130" or so. From what I have seen, after the age of 2.5, the mass really starts to add up, too. Their bodies tend to change a lot in those age jumps, too. By 4.5 years old, you see the "sway back," heavy neck, and typically "Roman-nosed" heads.

Some people don't realize it, but a 2.5 year old deer is an adult deer. It may not be a mature deer by most folks' standards, but technically it is an adult.