down tines vs drop tines

Wow!

You've said a mouthful. Those are some very engaging questions. I like em'! When I get in tonight after cutting bucks I will try to give some of my opinion.

In my OPINION.....................Drops are what bucks like Blazer had! The BIG sack like down tines look more like............a Bull scrotum! LOL


 


Just my thoughts!

This is Wild Cardiac at 3 this year he has a lot of down tines... LOL

jerri lee I guess that's why they make fords and chevys . I'm new to deer farming but I've read all I could for 2 long years including this forum seems to me some farmers raise what they like and some for the market. me its for what I like in a deer . as for tine length  it would depend what tine you are talking about. deer like gb magic, banjo, and omg then that is the far end of tine length. I would strive to have something similar but reality is Id be happy with 10" g3s but not settle for that.

perhaps I misread and you are talking about the down or drop tine length.

One of my observations is that deer with drop tines rarely have great tine length. The old #5 buck from Okie, Buddy 111, and Dude at 3years are exceptions and I am sure there are many others. Very few deer will grow a 15"+ typical tine and have a drop on that side. Thumb through a sale catalog and see how many deer have a 10" g-4. Lol I have posted about tine length several times on this forum. Dr Kroll stated the premium whitetail frame is one that fills in four sides of a square frame. Our industry has many nice deer that would be incredible if they had the tine length to go vertical and fill in the top of the square frame.

I agree with Wayne's humorous his description of what a drop tine is and isn't. I don't care for bucks that round off their tines and don't finish them out.

I would have to say by the looks of the market, you still get paid by the inch. Regardless what way they are going.  I still have yet to see any kind of reward for growing nice clean good looking deer but did/do see 200 inches make dawn good cash regardless where the inches are on the rack. I bred clean for looks and what i like to see in a buck but i am also getting the shaft when offered prices for them. Now the ones that have drop's,droop's' swag's and stickers are the ones im getting offered money for.


 


For what i see, you still get paid by the inch and from here on in at least half my herd will be bred with the biggest, nastiest blood pushing brute i can afford.   


Sad but so true!

one year old with a droptine.

Brett

That's an interesting picture. It looks like the yearling has a little shorter tines on the side with the drop.

Yes.  If you look close at the drop tine, he damaged it.  i think this affected that side.  He was about the same growth on both sides until the damage.  Can't wait to see him grow out next year.  That picture was taken early july.  he caught up most of it before mid august on that side.

Here is Rattler @ 4 he has 15-1/2" G 2s on both sides with deep splits and Scored 305", and some drop tines or down tines what ever you want to call them,


 


if i had to chose i would raise a pen full of these, and by the way he has Maxbo in his pedigree!!!

If outstanding tine length is the goal. Females must be bred up with long tined typical discipline to predictably move vertical with longer tined offspring. Outcrossing is also an important part of breeding for more tine length. A female line can be bred up to predictably produce a huge desired typical frame. Some older doe have to be kept to effectively know what has been gained in the doe line. We have many old doe resulting from sorting this out. Sexed male semen from a nontypical sire can then be used to get extras if they are desired without ruining the outstanding typical frame production of the disciplined doe line.

Bell968111409624374



One of my observations is that deer with drop tines rarely have great tine length. The old #5 buck from Okie, Buddy 111, and Dude at 3years are exceptions and I am sure there are many others. Very few deer will grow a 15"+ typical tine and have a drop on that side. Thumb through a sale catalog and see how many deer have a 10" g-4. Lol I have posted about tine length several times on this forum. Dr Kroll stated the premium whitetail frame is one that fills in four sides of a square frame. Our industry has many nice deer that would be incredible if they had the tine length to go vertical and fill in the top of the square frame.

I agree with Wayne's humorous his description of what a drop tine is and isn't. I don't care for bucks that round off their tines and don't finish them out.




Bell just hitting on the tine length with drops then venturing off topic a bit lol.  I don't think he will have 15" tines, but Northern Yankee has G2's 12"+ and drops 14" plus.  Both his drops and up tines tapper from the back tine to front as most native deer do.  I'm hoping to fence my place one day and have a preserve.  I can't quit my day job so I want to focus on a very small number of 300" plus hunts a year and cull / charity hunts.  Again back to getting paid by the inch.  Yankee has the look I want with only 2 exceptions, I want more lower profile width because antlers can never be too wide and cleaner brows.  Although superior tine length isn't that important to me I'm still breeding for good tine length.  I'm breeding Powerball's dam Red 16 into every deer in my program because she throws great tine length with extra's, high scores and doesn't throw "narrow" per say.  I love heavy mass somewhat typicals like Complex and big square frames like Dude, but I'm not breeding for it in its pure sense because of my end goal.  If Dude were mine he'd probably be in with all my Northen Yankee doe fawns this fall, but I won't pay 2500/straw.  Most native deer are clean typicals so I can't see typicals as the majority of our market ever.  I have no idea what the difference is in down and drop tines, LOL.  But at the same time I rarely ever call a buck ugly because I think it could be taken wrong if we call our deer pretty or ugly etc but some definitely get the short end of the gene pool.  Most are impressive in some way and I try to focus on the positive attributes.  Assuming they make it I am breeding my most typical breed does to Turning Point (I saw him in person at 2 and his drops definitely took away from him at 3 but although there aren't many good pics I saw him in person and he was almost perfectly symmetrical and his big drops were probably 18' or better) this year and my least typical does to wide framey bucks that still hit 400 like fear factor and sun stroke.  Until I've got a solid foundation I see produce 300-400" bucks on my farm I won't breed more than a couple does typically year on year.  I lost the one I wanted to breed like that this year.  She was Hard Times / Maximus DT / Eclipse / Poncho / Mandy and I wanted to get a female straw of Dillon to put in to stack width in the female side.  My least favorite attribute is unsymmetrical deer.  If a deer is symmetrical it looks right to me.  If not I wonder if it was damage genetics etc and I shy away.  Stickers or flyers I often interchange but typically I call off the tines stickers and going straight out from the main beam flyers.  I agree 10" is good tine length.  I don't think it get's impressive until it is over a ft or several are 10". Here's a pic of Yankee August 1st.

Truth

I have a lot of respect for Wilmer and Irvin.They have paid a lot of attention to the details and that is what separates the men from the boys. We breed with a much different goal but each try to do our homework. Northern Yankee is a nice looking non typical. He has solid G-4's as well. If you turn through almost any sale catalog very few bucks have great G-4's. I also like it that he has finished out all his tines to a point. That's a trait I see on native bucks antlers almost always. The rounded off blunt tines I never see in the woods. I wouldn't say they are ugly but to me they give an animal a manufactured man made look. God put horns on their heads for fighting and dominating. The rounded off unfinished tine isn't going to ventilate another bucks ribs.

Jonathan, one thing i love about my herd is the consistently well developed sharp tines. I agree, I don't like rounded tines, they don't impress me in the least. I respect a 250" rack that's well developed over a 400" rack with all soft tips and porous antlers. If a buck rubs out and his antlers are porous, I think he is pushing too much antler for his own good, or he was sick during that previous year or growing season, or possibly lacking something in his feed.

I really like sharp drops, nothing looks better than a fully developed sharp drop. Most cases gravity plays havoc on the blood flow and causes them to look like balled up clumps, but occasionally a buck gets beautiful drops.

I believe when a drop tine is directly under a G-tine usually the tine length of that tine suffers. The drop acts like a drain for the blood going up into the tine above due to the effects of gravity. If the drops are going outward in a more horizontal angle, gravity isn't going to effect the blood flow as much in the tines above.

jerrilee cave973411410426357



Samuel,


Rattler looks great this year and he has drop tines not down tines.


I see a lot of bucks with a row of tines going down. To me this is a very undesirable trait.


I try to look at this also as the eye of the people looking in on the deer industry and what we are producing and does it look artificial?


I know it takes all kinds but how artificial does it make our deer look?????? Do we see that trait in the wild?? we all know the answer to that. 


Literally some bucks are looking like they are almost upside down with   down tines as long as or longer  than uptines. 


And Mike I know they still pay by the inch but when does in  pens carry this undesirable trait where will it take this industry.   I think the philosophy of stacking inches on inches catches up with the breeder and will bites them in the butt.  I think it has for a lot of people by producing ugly unbalanced animals. 




Cant say i myself have seen anybody lose on deer with more inches. Narrow i will give ya but most are still 18-22 inches and most hunters never see that in the woods, in the wild. I myself do not keep up with to many preserve owners but a couple i do watch and Sam would be one of them. He has to be one of the biggest to grow,buy and sell many,many very different looking bucks and gets the job done with them all. We all know fugly is fugly and there are some fugly bucks out there but in the eyes of the haters looking in we could all raise the same looking 24 inch 10pts with 14in tines and 30in beams and we still would be taboo.


 


And it still pays better than farming cattle. For Now Anyways!