Hey, Answer Girl -

We have a lot of mule deer roaming the streets and yards in Rawlins. Last year, there was a very large buck with non-typical antlers. One side was six points and the other side was really deformed. One point even spread out like a moose paddle. We've seen another big buck with nearly the same non-typical antlers this year. Do buck deer have a genetic pattern for their antlers that repeat the same pattern year after year?

- Sox in Rawlins

Mule deer antlers do have a genetic component, but not for malformations, according to Terry Kreeger, a wildlife veterinarian with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

The genetic component would help dictate the size of the antlers, but in a free-ranging population of mule deer, there's too much interbreeding for a malformation of that type to be genetically carried on. Also, Kreeger said, there's no reason a genetic defect would affect only one antler, rather than both.

Instead, he said, the non-typical antlers were probably caused by an injury when the antlers were still in the velvet stage (the developing stage). If there was an injury to the pedestal - the bony part of the antler that's attached to the head - while the antlers were forming, that can cause strange formations, including the moose-paddle type you're describing.

And while Kreeger said it's very easy for deer to injure the pedestal when the antlers are in the velvet stage, he also notices that usually the deer are very careful not to hit them too hard, as though they know they can injure them at that stage. Still, he said, in any hundred deer, you'll probably see a malformation of some kind.

In Wyoming, that means there are quite a few deer with deformed antlers wandering about.

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