August-September 2024 • Nebraskaland 43
velvet covering begins to dry, crack
and peel away from the fully formed,
hardened antler bone.
Triggered by shorter days that come
as fall approaches, the shedding of
velvet occurs during a short window
from late August into September.
Bucks accelerate shedding by rubbing
and thrashing antlers on trees, bushes
and other vegetation. The process can
take anywhere from a few hours to
several days. Bucks then carry their
hard, calcifi ed antlers for the remaining
six months of the antler cycle.
Fuzzy to Calcifi ed
Recently, researchers at the
University of Nebraska at Kearney,
including undergraduate Bodin
Wilson, graduate Logan Dietrich and
me, conducted a study to determine
the time frame in which white-tailed
deer in Nebraska shed their velvet,
and compared velvet shedding
between younger and older bucks. Our
focus area included the South Loup
and Platte rivers in central Nebraska.
We strategically placed 33 trail
cameras in areas with high deer
density from July through October
2022. We found no detectible
diff erences between river drainages.
White-tailed bucks shed velvet
during a 35-day window, with the
earliest observations of complete
velvet shedding occurring by Aug.
A white-tailed buck's antlers are wrapped in velvet near DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge in
Washington County during a summer evening in late July. ERIC FOWLER, NEBRASKALAND
