Huntingbry, great post, I really appreciate your feedback.

Pike, I agree that you're not going to see a sharp decrease in rutting behavior by immature bucks; if you think I suggested otherwise I apologize, it was unintentional. My argument (opinion only) is that the cumulative effect of stress will be less in a healthy population with a natural breeding ecology. I agree that the fighting and chasing done by immature bucks may increase; my argument is that in the grand scheme there will be less stress than in an overpopulated herd with a limited number of bucks.

Pike...you definitely opened my eyes that I need to be very careful when selecting sources to support my point; you can't always take something for face value.

I'm very satisfied with the way this thread turned out. My goal was to urge people to at least consider stress as part of the conversation when it comes to the pillars of antler growth (I should not have limited it to breeding stress). The current conversation accounts for age/genetics/nutrition. As pike eluded to earlier in this post, genetics plays a very small role; and is often not a limiting factor. I am under the opinion that stress should be ranked above genetics when it comes to antler growth. However, I realize more research needs to be done before this will become widely accepted.