Regarding does, did you know:
• You can determine the peak of the rut in your area by measuring fetuses
from harvested does.
• Does also use scrapes during the breeding season, and they may use
them on a regular basis.
• 82 percent of fetal growth occurs during the final trimester of pregnancy. This time frame corresponds perfectly with spring green-up in northern herds.

How are you with numbers? Did you know:
• Fawns average about 300 white spots.
• Except for nursing two to four times a day, a fawn spends the first four weeks of life in hiding, separate from the doe.
• Healthy fawns average 4 to 8 pounds at birth and they will double their weight in two weeks and triple it within a month.
• Healthy fawns can outrun a man when only a few days old but it generally takes three to six weeks before they can elude most predators.
You’re more knowledgeable about bucks? Did you know:
• Pheromones deposited at signposts (rubs and scrapes) by mature bucks may have a “bio-stimulating” or trigger effect on the breeding season.
• Older bucks may also produce “controlling” or “priming” pheromones that yearling bucks are not physically mature enough to produce.
• Areas with mature bucks can have 10 times as many rubs as areas without them,
• Mature bucks make about 85 percent more scrapes and 50 percent more rubs than yearling bucks.
• Young bucks can sire up to a third (30 percent) of fawns even in populations where mature bucks comprise over 50 percent of the bucks.
Regarding communication, did you know:
• Bucks of all ages use scrapes, and the same scrape may be
used by many individuals.
• Scraping activity peaks just prior to peak of the rut, but
active scrapes may be found over several months.
• Most scraping activity (85 percent) occurs at night.
• Scrapes only a few hundred yards apart may be used by
completely different groups of bucks, which brings into
question the idea of a “scrape line.”

How is your antler knowledge? Did you know:
• Deer antlers can grow an inch or more per day, making
them the fastest normal growing tissue known to man.
• In photoperiod-controlled experiments, deer can grow
up to three sets of antlers per year or retain their antlers
for more than one year.
• Transplanting material from a buck’s pedicle to other
skeletal regions results in growth of antler tissue in the
transplanted area (such as on the forehead of mice or the
leg of a deer).
• Bucks “steal” minerals from their skeleton to harden
their antlers in late summer – thus they experience a
yearly form of osteoporosis.