Blood Trails to Sheds?

[SHEDHEAD]

Just wandering if any of you have ever heard of finding a lot of blood(esp. in years with heavy snowfall) and trailing the blood back to a shed antler. I personally have never done this although I have found lots of blood "drippings" in areas where I've found sheds. I have heard of people following blood trails right to sheds before and even finding dead bucks that they believed bled to death because of a shed antler. Rumor of fact--just wandering everyone's experiences.

[Bent]

I have a series off a big whitetail, 29 inch spread. I believe he bled to death out of one of his pedicles, as he was laying dead 50 yards from where I found his antler. One of the pedicles were clean and the other one was soaked with a heavy crust of dried blood. He was 7 years old when he died.

[TJF]

Bent
Where both sheds 50 yards from the dead buck?? I've heard of bucks kicking off a side if they had already lost one side. More so on the bigger racked older bucks. I wonder if it is possible, he lost the one side and got agressive and kicked the other side off, to lighten the load and make things even so to speak. Since they don't always shed both at the same time, maybe it is possible that the one side was not ready to be shed and if he kicked it off prematurely, that caused him to bleed to death.

Tim

[Iowa1]

I agree that bucks, especially those with big antlers will put a lot of effort into getting the other side to come off, but to think of a buck bleeding to death out of an atler pedicel seems impossible. Usually they have to have a major artery cut to bleed to death. You say that the blood was scabbed up, so I really doubt the buck bled to death. Weird though, I'd love to know what actually happened.

[Bent]

I only found one shed from him that last year. Maybe He was bleeding real bad and the coyotes finished him off when he was weak. I have two other complete sets from this buck and two more singles. I have seen a lot of bucks trying to kick their antlers off, more so when they only have one side left on. I think they start to itch a lot. That pedicel was socked deep into the skull with blood.

[SHEDHEAD]

BENT,it's interesting that you have actually viewed several bucks try to kick off their remaining antler. I've often wandered if they do itch when they near shedding time because it seems I see a definite increase in sparring and rubbing a week or so before they actually shed. I wander if anyone has ever done a study on it. I don't doubt that some large bucks would bleed to death or get infection with such a big cavity in their skull where an antler was prematurely shed. Thanks for the interesting insight into this subject. Keep me posted on what else you guys here. Thanks.

when i was a youngster we would see alot of the same stuff! just my 2 cents