Looking for stuff on antler sizes in red deer (I have some
extremely large BA one from a palaeochannel) I found this
web discussion. Thought it might be of use to somebody.
I think there is a deer list on yahoo called deermail2.
I<RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK>ve followed the discussion about antler growth and Cu
requirements with interest. I imagine that the NZ deer researchers
would have some useful comments to make. There have been
several NZ experiments in which deer have been given Cu
supplements, these are referenced in the Ellison (1995) paper
(below). I've listed below three references which have data on the
serum and liver Cu levels of red deer which were in apparently good
health. In lieu of anything else, these might be useful as reference
levels for serum Cu for red deer. Ellison (1995) suggests that a
normal range of Cu in red deer serum is 8 <EN DASH> 22 umol/L. From my
reading, I think that red deer need from 7 to 20 mg Cu/kg diet DM.
Audigé,L.J.M., Wilson, P.R. and Morris, R.S. (1995). Deer herd
health productivity and data. Proceedings of the Deer
Branch New Zealand Veterinary Association Conference <EN DASH>
1995, pp. 31-56.
Ellison,R.S. (1995). Trace elements in deer. Proceedings of the
Deer Branch New Zealand Veterinary Association
Conference <EN DASH> 1995, pp. 57-68.
Fyffe,J.J. (1996). Serum copper concentrations and clinical signs
in red deer (Cervus elaphus) during drought in central
Victoria. Australian Veterinary Journal, 73: 188-191.
KevinStafford has published some liver Cu data for feral sambar in
NZ:
Stafford,K.J. (1997). Trace element status of sambar deer (Cervus
unicolor) in Manawatu district, New Zealand. New Zealand
Journal of Zoology, 24: 267-271.
Most authors seem to hold the view that antler growth is mainly a
function of body size (e.g. Moore, et al 1988). We have a little bit
of evidence for earlier initiation of antler growth in rusa weaner
stags when they were fed a diet with more than 15% protein
(Puttoo, et al 1998), which is similar to the results of Biagioli, et al
(1993). There<RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK>s a very useful paper from this year<RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK>s ASAP
conference (Pearse, et al 2000) on feeding for antler growth. As a
bit of a long shot, there are the observations of Barrette (1985) of
wild axis deer in Sri Lanka that stags in velvet antler were more
likely to chew bones and cast antlers than stags in hard antler.
References are:
Barrette,C. (1985). Antler eating and antler growth in wild Axis
deer. Mammalia, 49: 491-499.
Biagioli,O. et al (1993). Effects of diet supplementation on antler
growth in deer. Proceedings of the National Congress of the
Italian Scientific Association of Animal Production, 10: 681-
686.
Moore,G.H., Littlejohn, R.P. and Cowie, G.M. (1988). Liveweights,
growth rates, and antler measurements of farmed red deer
stags and their usefulness as predictors of performance.
New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research, 31: 285-291.
Pearse,A.J., Suttie, J.M. and Corson, I.D. (2000). Velvet antler
production <EN DASH> improved nutrition and management. In Animal
Production for a Consuming World. Asian-Australasian
Journal of Animal Sciences, 13 Suppl.: 51-52.
Puttoo,M., Dryden, G.McL. and McCosker, J.E. (1997).
Performance of weaned rusa (Cervus timorensis) deer given
concentrates of varying protein content with sorghum hay.
Australian Journal of Experimental
Agriculture, 38: 33-39.
----------------------
Jacqui Mulville,
EH Regional Science Advisor (E. Mids)
Oxford University Museum,
Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PW
Tel: 01865-272996 Fax: 01865-272970
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