Freak Show Bucks: A Hard Look at Breeding For Antlers

I always try to avoid those sick tabloids at the supermarket checkout counter. You know the ones with the two-headed calves and the chickens with three legs and steroid-taking body builders who didn't know how to say no. I feel sorry for these freaks of nature and truth be told, they give me the creeps. That's why I cringe every time I open an e-mail proudly offering a 300-, or 400- or even 500-inch whitetail buck at stud. Last week I received 4 of them, including the deer pictured here which is reportedly a new world record at 561 6/8 inches with 88 scoreable points. I click the e-mails open, cringe and delete. Then I get mad. Mad, because unlike the two-headed calf who is a true freak of nature, these whitetails are freaks of a different kind. These Frankenstein bucks are man made and money is the motive. One look at this pen-reared buck tells you there is something wrong, something terribly wrong. His obscenely disfigured antlers look more like something you would find growing on a coral reef or in a post nuclear war sci-fi thriller. They twist and turn and droop and bulge and fork and then fork again. Some of these deer seem to have multiple bases and all of the racks are preposterously large for the necks and shoulders that support them. They look nothing like the bucks we see on magazine covers, nothing like the buck of our dreams. In the following slides I'll describe the methods behind growing these freak bucks and show you photos of just how outrageously large they can get. Above: Ballistic, at 561 6/8 inches

According to a deer farming insider, normal captive deer live for about 12 years while deer bred only for massive antlers usually die by age 7. Maybe it's too many steroids or food supplements? Maybe it's medication and living in a rarefied environment? Maybe it's donating more sperm than their bodies can handle. My guess is it's the genetics. I'm no genetics expert, but breeding brothers to half sisters and mothers to sons and then back again can't be healthy. I've studied more than a few field champion pedigrees in my day and I've never seen "line" breeding like I see in the antler growing business. Some of these breeders breed for antlers and don't seem to care much about how they get them. Frankenbucks are the products of excessive "line" breeding. They aren't bred for hybrid vigor, longevity or the ability to take on all comers and win breeding rights. They aren't bred for the ability to avoid hunters, live through a hard winter or to produce tastier venison. Above: Ballistic, at 561 6/8 inches

Most of these deer are bred artificially. An electronic probe is inserted into a "prize" buck's rectum. Push a button and an electric impulse causes the buck to ejaculate. The process is referred to as electroejaculation. The semen is captured in a vessel, gets packaged in "ready-to-inseminate straws" and then it's sold. That's the buck's side of the deal. Pictured: Dropzilla

The doe's job is simpler. She gets tranquilized, scoped and probed until her cervix is located and then a straw of semen is inserted. An insemination specialist blows on the other end of the straw and the job is done. All she has to do now is wake up and produce a son who grows a few hundred inches of antler by age one and a half. Pictured: 24Wide

https://www.outdoorlife.com/photos/gallery/hunting/2011/09/freak-show-bucks-look-genetically-altered-deer/

Freak Show Bucks: A Hard Look at Breeding For Antlers

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Freak Show Bucks: A Hard Look at Breeding For Antlers

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