Hoss

I went down to help Barkley and Cole with Hoss last night. He’s slowly had more and more trouble holding his head up, and his condition got worse in the past 2 days. A decision was made to dart him and remove his antlers. The procedure went extremely well.

His left side was damaged early on and didn't grow in typical Hoss fashion, but his right side was looking great. He had a 15” G2, 12” G3 and 9” G4…. Hoss always puts the sharp points on his uptines so I’ll let you all judge just how long his tines would have been this year. My hand wouldn’t even fit around the tip of his G3 and his G2 was absolutely massive.

I talked to Cole this morning and he said that Hoss is able to hold his head up and seems to be doing much better. Having lifted his antlers I can tell you that he probably feels like a new man today!

wow, I see that he has lost some hair, any idea on what made him "weak" ? any deer of his size should have no trouble with 25 pounds of antler. My thoughts go to a bacterial infection affecting the oxygen carrying capacity.

Unreal, please tell me you are freeze drying the antlers.

Curtis - not really sure exactly what the main cause was. I was running around helping out and didn't get a full report. I do know that he was looking quite a bit better today after having the antlers removed.



Predator3 - yes they are freeze drying the antlers. I've watched Hoss grow since he was a 2 year old and I think he would have had some of the longest tines ever grown on a buck.

Michael, he's fricking HUGE.... I'm just not sure if he has enough mass.... Goodnight



Tell Barkley that I hope he comes through this OK and that I said hi!

Thanks Holly! I will pass your message on to Barkley. The scary part about the mass on his G's is that he's always grown them out to nice points... I can't imagine how long they would have been if he stayed healthy.

The Maxbo boys are obviously tearing it up once again, and it's impressive to see the man himself still putting it on his head after all these years. You guys should be very proud of such an amazing group of animals!

Anyone know how Hoss is doing? any findings on what caused his condition???

Hey Curtis -

Hoss is doing great! He started holding his head up again the day after we cut his horns. We're still not exactly sure what caused him to go down hill like he did. Hoss is a HUGE deer and he should have been able to hold up those antlers, but as soon as they were off his head he turned around.

Have a good night.

What a massive buck! He definitely had some growing left to do.