How fast do moose antlers grow

Watch moose butting heads on a suburban street. Male, or bull, moose grow their antlers each year through the spring and summer. When they first form, antlers are covered with a layer of skin called velvet , which nourishes the bone as it grows.

When finished, the velvet sheds off, a process that the moose often accelerate by rubbing on trees. The antlers are fully formed by the early fall, when bull moose bellow to attract females and use their weaponry to battle rival males watch an epic moose fight.

After mating, the male and female go their separate ways. Weighting up to 1, pounds kilograms and standing more than six feet two meters tall, moose are the largest species of deer in the world.

Their antlers can spread six feet from end to end and weigh 40 pounds 18 kilograms. The animals range across northern North America, Europe, and Siberia. Samuel says bull moose typically lose their antlers between mid-December and the end of January. Older bulls are known to shed earlier, although the moose in the video looks like a younger adult, he notes.

Moose are struggling across much of their southern distribution in North America, including in Wyoming, says Samuel. A main cause is the rise of winter ticks , which are thriving in the relatively warmer winters the region has been experiencing over the past few years with a likely tie to climate change. The ticks can become so plentiful on a moose that they can weaken it to the point of death.

Calves are the most vulnerable. All rights reserved. Watch: The moment a moose loses an antler. Battle Gear Male, or bull, moose grow their antlers each year through the spring and summer. Early Shedder? Once antlers are shed, the process of growing them begins anew. Male deer have two spots on their skulls called pedicles from which their antlers grow. In the spring, the antlers begin to sprout from the pedicles. The new antlers are covered by a fuzzy-looking skin called velvet.

The velvet is specialized to help the antlers grow, Popular Science reports. It's filled with blood vessels that help transport blood, oxygen and essential nutrients to the area, which allow the antlers to grow quickly.

While the antlers are covered in velvet, deer don't want them to come into contact with anything that could injure or damage them. Injuries to the velvet or even another part of the buck's body can cause the antlers to grow abnormally. When the antlers are fully grown, they harden to bone and the velvet is cut off from the deer's blood supply and dies away.

The velvet then sheds, and the deer try to remove it by rubbing it against trees and other structures. By the time mating season begins in the fall, the velvet is gone and the antlers are a hard, bony material.

The antlers themselves are mostly made of calcium, just like bone, Sciencing reports. But deer don't consume a lot of calcium in their diet, so it instead has to be produced by chemical reactions, which requires a lot of the buck's energy. Because of how much energy it takes to grow antlers, the healthiest deer grow the biggest and most impressive antlers.

However, a deer's diet isn't the only thing that factors into antler grow. Antlers are costly to grow, but necessary during the deer breeding season or rut.

As the rut starts, males continue to rub their antlers on vegetation to scent mark and begin sparring with each other to determine dominance. Dominant males may offer an antler to young males for sparring. The sound of antlers rattling will draw other males to the area, as sparring is an important part of deer social behavior. As the season progresses, sparring ends and serious competition for females begin.

Posturing is usually enough, but sometimes two equally matched males will fight. Fighting includes locking antlers and pushing. Once the loser backs down, the winner may swipe at the loser as he runs away. One antlered bull elk in snow scratching at remaining antler. Once the fall rut is over, why carry around extra weight? Antlers have served their purpose and can be discarded. Antlers are heavy and can be cumbersome for males whose primary interest is now eating enough to survive the winter.

Decreased daylight triggers lower testosterone production which causes the connection between the antler and the skull to weaken. Deer antlers can vary in weight from 3 to 9 pounds. Healthier deer will have heavier antlers because the bone is dense from good mineralization. A bull elk in his prime could have an antler spread of four feet, with each antler weighing 20 pounds. Moose antlers spreading six feet weigh about 40 pounds each. Rodent chewed antler on forest floor. Photo by NPS. Deer, elk and moose may enjoy the increased mobility for foraging after they shed antlers.

Other animals are excited to find shed antlers during their foraging. Many nutrients are needed to make bone, such as calcium, phosphorus and protein. These nutrients are important for all types of animal growth, not just big strong antlers. Rodents in particular love shed antlers - mice, squirrels, and porcupines will gnaw on antlers for their nutrients and to wear down their ever growing teeth. Even bears, foxes, opossums and otters have been known to eat antlers. Because antler sheds are important for healthy habitat, antler shed hunting is illegal in many places.

If you buy antler products make sure they are legally sourced. Bull moose. If antlers are shed each year, can they be used like tree rings to age an animal?

No, typically antlers are not a reliable way to determine an animal's age. What antlers do indicate is the health and fitness of an animal. The one case where you can be fairly certain that antlers are a good indication of age is for yearling deer and elk, which have spikes rather than branched antlers. Deer, elk and moose past their prime will have smaller, less dense antlers. Whitetail deer will have the largest antlers in their prime years from 4 to 6, elk between ages 9 to 12, and moose from ages 5 to