First off 2 .5 year olds are going to do the bulk of the breading simply because there are more of them. While a 4.5 year old is spending time with a specific doe, 2.5 year olds are running around humping anything in heat that will let them get their hooves around. This is one of the reasons when I hade a place I could manage, we used our first tag to kill any 2.5 year old that was lacking brows, spindly racks, and had little or no tines on the beams, would also kill the mother if we knew who she was, 2.5 year olds that had a well balanced rack got a pass and their mothers were off limits.

As far as Dr Krolls statement goes, the lack of food intakeand rutting down period is naturally going to take away from any bone growth during this period which affects the pedicel, but I would have to say no more than any hard winter.

Mostbucks have gained their weight back by the time they start growing a new rack, I would worry more about a drought, where their brouse and mast is effected during their antler growth cycle than I would about how many girlfriends they boinked last season.