Around here, most of the bucks carry them well into March.
Some will drop them in January, but I think the majority don’t shed them until early March, some even hang on till April.
I read somewhere that Whitetails will always shed their horns within a couple days of the same date every year.
It’s true as far as I can tell. My Dad raised one from a doe that was hit on the road shortly after giving birth. It came onto my cousin’s property, looking for her.
He tried to give it to a deer farm, but they won’t take a buck unless they know it’s a good one.
Long story short, they give him a bill of sale ( so it’d be legal to possess) and a paper on how to care for it. He gave it to Dad because he didn’t have enough room.
The Old Man took it into the house for two weeks, feeding it goat’s milk every 4 hours, wiping it bunghole with a wet paper towel. (The mother will lick it to stimulate bowl movement)
In the meanwhile, me and Dad built a small corral outta 7’ chain link fence. We named him “Stilts” on account of the long legs fawns all have.
We had him for 5 years, finally selling him to a ranch. He never really had a wide spread, but each year he developed a nice, high rack of 8 to 10 points. And he always dropped them the second week of March.
7mm
