February 8, 2009 - Shed Spread

Welcome to the Nature Notebook.

The saying that one person’s trash is another’s treasure certainly holds true as white-tailed deer bucks shed their antlers. What was once essential to them last fall to attract attention to themselves and to use for sparing, serves no functional purpose now that the rut is long past. The cast antlers become trash to the bucks, but are valuable to their finders. Antlers are high in calcium, a nutrient lacking in the winter diet of rodents. So when mice, squirrels or porcupines happen upon a shed antler it is a real treasure for them. They gnaw on the antler to consume some of that calcium. All the resources used to grow the antlers are passed on from deer to rodent. And, the cycle begins again. A few short weeks after losing its antlers, a buck begins growing new ones.

This is PPL's naturalist, Jon Beam, with the Nature Notebook for WVIA.