The Story of Antlers

Associated with aristocracy, antlers have adorned European castles and hunting lodges for centuries.  Today, furnishings and accessories made from antlers are featured in fine homes throughout the world and are a reflection of grace and elegance.

Antlered Deer, Elk and Moose and most other antlered animals shed, or drop, their antlers each year, and in their place grow new ones.  These sheds are like fingerprints, and are as unique as the animals that shed them. 

Antlers are strong and solid and are art by themselves.  Antlers are bony outgrowths that develop from and are attached to two protuberances called pedicles on top of the skull.  While antlers are growing they are covered by a furry skin covering called velvet.  The growing and hardening of the antlers is completed in late July or August.

In August, increased production of testosterone cuts off the blood supply to the antlers and velvet.  The velvet dies, dries up, and peels away.  Further removal of velvet from antlers occurs during the rut.  Among the testosterone-induced rut activities of the male, which begin in late August or September is the thrashing of antlers against sapling trees and shrubs while staining them.  Next time you are hiking in the woods, you may see some signs of some antlered animals on trees where the bark is rubbed off.

The reduced daylight of winter diminishes testosterone production; this causes the shedding, or dropping, of antlers.  Mature males shed them in February-March and younger males may retain theirs until May depending on what part of the country you live in.  New antlers begin to grow within days after old ones drop.

Antlers are the fastest growing tissue known in the world.  Caribou males and females both grow antlers; this is the only member of the deer family that this occurs.  Horns and antler are not the same, true antler is calcified tissue.  Horn, found on sheep, goat, antelope and buffalo are actually hairs growing off the head of these animals and "mold" into the form of the horn.  Most horns do not shed.  Antlers are a renewable resource and shed-horn hunting is a common activity throughout the world, providing antlers to many markets without causing harm to the animal.  An adult moose can carry a 60 pound set of antlers.