A world record for a Red Stags antlers in New Zealand...

Notice he can't pick his head up off the ground!

someone put these up earlier....99% sure its on peel forest estate. its all the good fertiliser I spread amoung them....

peelforestestate.co.nz/#

well worth a gander at thier site...some of them stags are mind blowing.

Sorry, I'd have a hard time pulling the trigger on one of these. I know some hunters would and probably pay a lot. As far as I'm concerned, they are not natural. They are man-made.

What do you give a deer to turn on that protein? Maybe a supplement that contains Calcium 48 scraped off the ground around Chernobyl?
That kind of growth has to be selectively bred into an animal, doesn't it?

PaulS wrote:

What do you give a deer to turn on that protein? Maybe a supplement that contains Calcium 48 scraped off the ground around Chernobyl? That kind of growth has to be selectively bred into an animal, doesn't it?

you shoot him with shot in his antlers while they are growing. Where you hit them with shot, an extra point will grow...

I don't have any experiences with deer as here are only roedeer. But when a roebuck hurts his antlers while they are growing, you can get antlers a with funny shape.

And the trick with shot comes from Romania... don't you remember that dictator who had a special hunting train and hunted with a Kalashnikov (and used his army to drive the game to his spot). He had the world record deer... (untill they discovered how those antlers where "made")

Still not impressed

ok.....if you cross a sike with a red you get multi points..
if you look around the globe you will find WITHIN red deer genetics that some are well known for multi point heads...others for very even symetrical heads,others for poor heads but huge body size....its only a matter of selectively breeding for the trait you want over many generations to get what you want to achieve...and fed them well...NOT on chernobal stuff just GOOD QUALITY feed and lots of it....most of the diet is only grass,some supliments eg palm kenal and feed nuts but by far the majority is grass.

Still not naturally occurring.

slimjim wrote:

Still not naturally occurring.

I agree Slim...not naturally occurring. This showcases the many “interventions” by man to genetically modify or cross breed desired traits into select animals...damaging the natural normal genus. The arrogance of man knows no bounds.

and his meat is not going to taste any better...
when it was that important what we carry ON our heads, then we should all have long hair and high hats and our farmers would cultivate Texan bulls...
IMHO it's more important what's IN our heads. Even in desserts we look what's beneath...

if they put those two stags out in paddock with real bush stags they will come to grief....when they very first started to put old stags that had been velveted all thier life but let to grow out a rack,out for safari clients , they came across all sorts of issues,the skulls werent used to holding a heavy weight so heads broke....antlers fell off in combat,it also ment the stags encountered others who knew nothing about them so an almighty scrap would occur busting up the big antlers....
they have learnt from this. stags which will be safaried out are let grow out antlers each year and sire stags put out with thier running mates..they already know whos boss so dont need to scrap.
even the very first red deer to come here over 100 years ago had thier genetics tootooed with in the winsor parks and the likes. the heads occuring NATURALLY now in our back country are rivaling what was taken in the heydays of the 40s and 50s...they are getting old enough and have enough feed.

the deer farming industry here started with wild captured deer (Rex Forresters books the chopper boys and the helecoptor hunters are well worth the time to find and read) it was a wild time with a hell of a lot of deaths and reckless behaviour to capture them from the wilds,guys were bull dogging deer by jumping off skids etc.a adult hind was worth a months wages. velvet was worth up to $2000 which was about the same if not a bit more than a hind. the population collapsed in the wild with all the venison recovery then followed by live capture...anyway back on track...
the first farms would keep deer and shoot them in paddock to sell them as was done earlier with wild stock....
then things got a bit more civilised with dark houses (usually a converted sheep sheering shed to begin with) trucks learnt to cart them and freezing works learnt to handle them....still got shot just in the works not paddock...meanwhile the velvet industry started to work itself out... stags go into a narrow race and the floor drops out leaving them stuck,they get antlers cut off ABOVE the peticle and they are released to carry on for another 12 mths.
so Kiwi farmers being the inovative fellas they are bred stags to cut heavier and heavier velvets,a few imported lines added bulk,others added multi points...the best $$$ velvet is young so it hasnt formed points properly. other farmers concentrated on carcass size ,again some clever importing brought in bigger animals .wapiti/elk are a snotty aggressive animal to deal with on a farm so a bit of crossing between them and reds was done,giving big size with more even temperament
at same time the budding safari industry was still chugging along and SOME clients are quite happy to shoot an animal in a pen (always has been this way all around the globe) others like free range and others again like the "illusion" of free range..eg cant see the ring fence. there are farmers out there who have huge antlered stags that are VERY even symetricle...others were bred for shear bulk,the occasional one that escapes adds its genes to the general pool....
to put the above stags down as being man made is the same as saying the 400lb pigs in pig farm are unnatural..they are still pigs and if let go into the wild would revert to wild ways.
we still have hers with very little outside influence and even if they get the odd bit of new blood,they are still reds and the feed and age has more to do with how they turn out than genetics alone
we here in NZ have got whitetail deer too. our very best heads would be culls in your country..same deer,same genetics,different feed conditions .if we brought in some really good genetics and managed to get them into the wild population....still debateable if the heads would improove.
ive got 2 heads in my possesion a 10 I shot 30 years ago in central north island and an 11 I shot in south of south island 2 years ago..they are just about identicle. that says alot about genetics in the wild population.