Big Deer Blog

Our buddy Wren (thanks man!) saw our post on unicorn bucks this morning and sent these pictures. This uni was shot just last December by Jake Steen on his family's ranch in Texas. Wren reports that on early trail-camera photos of this buck, the velvet on the unicorn was so white that for a time they thought it might be a broken-off tine stuck in a cinus cavity. But it turned out to be a true uni. I'm sure jake and everybody has wondered how rare his buck is. Well, as scientist Hellickson, says at least i in 4,000 rare. And with that cool white face coloration and the sticker on the unicorn tine, I'd say 1 in a million! Note the buck's main [...]

A fellow sent this photo and wondered if it was BS or legit. Well, this is either a hoax (tine stuck on deer's nose) or a unicorn. How common or rare is a unicorn buck? Is it possible a tine could grow out of the buck's forehead? Short answer, yes, tines can and do grow there. Mickey Hellickson, one of the top whitetail scientists in the world, says: It is caused by trauma to the frontal bone. This entire region of the skull is capable of growing antler, and if an area of the frontal bone is injured (such as a tine puncture from another buck) the trauma may cause an antler to grow from the injury.  Interestingly, researchers have even experimentally caused antlers to [...]