Originally Posted by
deernutz
Bull doodoo. The genes stay the same through old age. Horns go down hill because lack of nutrition and the bodies weakening state couse of old age. YES that deer will pass good genes on even if he looks raggy in his old age.
NO.
Because the replication process gets compromised after trillions of reputations the genes are NOT the same. Very similar but throughout the rna there will be many miss matched pairs (at a bucks older age) and can actually be bad for the off spring. I can give you a freak nasty buck, or a still born.
buttom line is that the genes do and will change with age, but how it directly effects the off spring is not known exactly because there is no way to for see which genes end up coded wrong.