Pierced ear deer shows perils of growing antlers

Sometimes you look at those early-season trail camera pictures and something catches your eye that doesn’t look quite right.

That was the case in October, when the staff at Lone Star Outdoor News began reviewing pictures of bucks from South Texas. A buck showed up multiple times in photos that was easily identifiable because his left antler had pierced through his left ear.

We’re not sure how this could have happened — early-season fight? Catching the ear on a fence?

The antler had to have been hard to puncture the tissue on the ear, so it had to have happened after the velvet was stripped.

The buck went at least a month with his ear folded over, with the brow tine sticking through the hole. Then one day last month, LSON Executive Editor Craig Nyhus was in the blind and the old buck came out — instead of the ear folded over with a brow tine through it, the ear was now free, although the hole was red and swollen.

Hunters watched the buck for several weeks as the ear healed.

Yesterday, our good friend, Capt. Scott Sommerlatte, was on the ranch for a hunt and finally harvested the mature buck. A check of the teeth confirmed the deer was very old — his molars were almost entirely worn down from a life of eating in the sandy South Texas soil.

The hole in the ear was almost healed and the buck looked to have gotten over the minor inconvenience.

Any thoughts on how the buck managed to stick his antler through his ear? If anyone has any similar stories, we’d love to hear about it. Send us an email at news@lonestaroutdoornews.com.