Originally Posted by Jeffpg
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Bucks seem to take a very long time to grow their antlers to maturity, compared to our native antlered species. I can’t really put exact figures on it, but I’m guessing 2-3 times as long as a whitetail, for instance, maybe even longer.
Well, that’s just a few things that I have personally observed. Your mileage may vary.


Thanks for the info. Here the whitetails shed around Valentines day and usually have hard horns by October. The Axis shed around December/January and are in hard horn by late May or June, some say April too. So pretty close to 7-8 months for each. This from the comments here and what I have read and also from local guides. If this is true then Whitetails take slightly longer to develop antlers. But I am sure it varies by herd and also where the original stock came from since they range from the Himalayan foot hills to Ceylon. Also the antlers look similar so you can easily mistake the same age class bucks.

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