Had a group of 5 bucks last year. 4 were 8pnts and one 5 pnt. all about the same size. then there was a huge 11 pnt that was always alone and rarley seen in daylight. By the time the rut kicked in good the 5 point had demolished his rack. Two of the 8's were broken badly and the 11 had 2 broken almost off and another broken in half. My first thought was a lack of nutrition but they have plenty of fields, pasture,food plots,gardens. and sence they never mess with any minerals I put out I figure they have plenty of those also. several people have feeders in the area. Any thoughts?
Perhaps an illness spread throughout the group during the racks' developmental stages caused them to become brittle, maybe???
I see more broken racks during years with a dry a summer. Not sure if that contributes or not, but it sure seems like it around here.
We had that problem 2 years ago. All of our big bucks we busted up. Game biologist said it was probably because our buck to doe ratio was near 1:1 thus causing the bigger bucks to fight for breeding rights.
Here's 2 of the ones that broke the main beam
(http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p75/barry61/CDY_0003_1_1.jpg)
(http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p75/barry61/CDY_0072_1_1.jpg)