Originally Posted by
Rushy
Because they have been cut off Richie. Most deer farmers remove the antlers from their big stags at least as they are safer to work with that way and there is less likelihood of losing an animal (although it can still happen). I have lost about six good stags over the years from goring one another. On one occasion about eight years ago I lost three on one day when I ran mature stags into my deer shed together to take the antlers off. I had actually had them entire herd in the shed the week before, drenching, weaning the fawns off the hinds, tagging the fawns etc and the stags were docile as. I made a call not to do the antlers on the stags as I was buggered so left it for the next weekend and in that week in between the hinds went into oestrus and the stags threw the switch and went from flight to fight mode.
If you have a look in Off Topic you will find a thread from about 4 - 6 weeks back where I took the antlers off one.