Alright....got a question on antler growth.
I know that the Right side of the brain controls the Left side of the body and the Left side of the brain controls the Right but what about antler growth?
Does the right side of the brain contol the right antler? and the left side of the brain control the left antler? Or does the left side of the brain control the right antler...etc.?
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What side controls the nose, mouth, belly button and lower things that are in the middle? I am not a doctor, but I think the brain only controls motor skills and thoughts through the spinal cord. I researched somewhere that the skull where the antler burr is, can be removed and placed on another part of the deer, and it will grow antler bone. I do remember reading this, but I don't remember where. So I would say the the deers brain has nothing to do with the antlers.
Even though the brain is just under the antlers, while sawing off bunches of antlers and cleaning them before mounting, I have never seen anything connecting the antler burrs directly to the brain.
...... to a deer's body have shown some effects on antler growth. Injuries on the rear right side of a deer's body have shown an effect on the left antler growth and vice versa. Injuries to thr front of a deer's body can effect either side of the antlers. This has been covered before and I think you can find more on it in the Archives. I know that there are references provided there also. I know that this doesn't exactly answer your question, but the references may lead you to a source that may. There seems to be some left/right correlation, but it is more related to body and antler growth than to the brain.
I have personally seen a buck that was missing about 10 inches of his right hind leg, it was perfectly healed over and not a fresh wound. His right antler was normal, but his left was only a cluster of points coming up from the burr.
I looked for about 30 minutes in the Archives and i didn't find what I was looking for.....
Michelle, I have no idea where to tell you to start looking for information on what is called lack of crossover mechanism of the brain in given hoofed animal genus and species. I imagine if you can find any information on it that it will come from the writings of "The Ancients", and probably not from anything of recent years.
An obstacle to overcome would be terminology. What Old Fart learned as crossover phenomena is now called crosssover mechanism in genetics.
I have always been under the impression that the lack of crossover mechanism (brain)as opposed to crossover mechanism of the brain is found in hoofed animals. In other words, left side of brain works left side of body, and right side of brain works right side of body. Along with that these animals are left-sided. The equivalent of a left handed person, kinda.
Bill Yox knows the name of the guy that did a huge part of the research into the opposite side injury/antler growth thing. Bill has talked to him in the past, and I can not remember how to pronounce or spell his name. Starts with a B.......
Regardless, he was associated with the University of Guelph, you might be able to make e-mail contact to get answers. However, summer is always a bad time to get any info back from universities.
I can enlarge upon this to some extent, but it could and would take a considerable amount of remembering, and writing, so if you're serious, which I take you to be, I could possibly be influenced into writing. You are raising some interesting points.
I shot a 5X5 buck, several years back. 1/2 of his back right leg was missing, and had only a solid stub directly below the knee. His right side of the rack was a nice typical 5 but his left side was a deformed 5 point. The deformity look as if it had 1/2 the growth as compared to the other side, with 5 small points, yet mostly all in a typical frame. My conclusion was that the right side of the deer body seemed to directly effect the growth of the left side of the rack.
A pic of the buck is here.
http://www.geocities.com/collguy82/newpic1.jpg
Yeah I am serious....I wanna know why a rack grows deformed due to injury, and why......What effects each side etc, etc, etc.... I havn't been able to find any info....
You guys wanted me to clarify, so Ill try. I know its in the archives, as we spoke at length on this. I dont recall where though either...
I have Old Farts book that he would use to reference this, thanks Dave, Ill be getting it back to you soon! The gentleman Glen was referring to was George Bubenik. He and his father Anthony (deceased) are well-known for their work with antlers and their theories on uni-lateral vs bi-lateral atrophy in antlers. Theres way too many particulars to re-type here. Some antler atrophy reflects same side and/or opposite side body trauma and other times its simply antler damage itself. Its pretty interesting stuff. Nowadays George is writing papers on testosterone influences on antler growth compared to estrogen stimulation to antler growth spurts...
Some speculation for deformities by injury or otherwise is thought to happen because of damage done to the deers genetic makeup. Also to repair damage to muscle and especially the bone that minerals and calcium needed to repair these areas will take vitamins and minerals that normally the deer use for antler growth. I've hunted for 22 years and now do my own taxidermy i manage my deer herd using minerals and food plots. In my experiences these are things i've seen. I hope i have helped but if you need to know more check out the whitetail institute they really know about deer and their genetic makeup ok good luck and have fun.
I've never seen injuries that cause damage from right to left and cause antler deformities on the oppisite side antlers i shot a three legged spike only because he was small and would not survived the winter. Both his spikes were normal. I also last season observed a buck which had a lump on his right shoulder and his right anler was about 4 inches shorter the his left.