My son got his first buck Thanksgiving day. Can't describe the excitement. Better than getting my first deer. I was shaking worse than he was.We now have anew hopelessly addicted deer hunter in the family.

My question is about this deer's antlers. The ranch I hunt on is working with the OK Wildlife department to develop a quality deer herd.(not high fenced)

The buck my son killed had a beautiful left side with 3 points and a broken eye guard. The main beam was 22in long and the base was 5 1/2 inches. The right side was a 8in spike 5 1/4 in in diameter at the base. It was not broken off, the whole spike is knotted and grown over. There have been two other deer seen in the areathat have this same type of rack. I'm concerned that we have some genetics in the heard that are causing this. The ranch manager seems to think that it's not genetics and that the deer's head was injured at some point causing it to have permanent retarded antler growth on that side. Anybody with some knowledge on the subject know if this would be genetics or an injury. If it's genetics we're gona start trying to take out the other bucks that look like this one did.