Some interesting info on castrated deer.

I recently attended a sportsman's show in LA where they had some unusual CA deer racks on display. They claimed they were stag deer. I know what stag means. These folks also claimed stag deer don't drop their antlers each year.

I'd never heard of this. I posted a few requests for info on another topic in this forum and got interesting replies. See "Dropped antlers".
Anyway I decided to email our state (CA) fish and game to see if they had any info. This is the reply I got. I thought I'd post this as separate topic since this is a little known fact.

It's true - without the testicles (or if they are so severely damaged as to not function) the hormones are not produced normally which cause antlers to drop, so they just keep growing year after year in some rather odd shapes. When I was stationed up in Lassen County, we had reports on several deer like this and figured that they probably got damaged jumping over a fence but we never found out. Most of the really strange looking non-typical racks are probably from deer like this. Feel free to contact me with any other questions and I'll see if I can get them answered.

Craig Stowers
Ca. Dept. Fish and Game
Deer Program Coordinator
1812 Ninth Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 445-3553