After reading in another thread it got me thinking, I never really see any busted up horns after the rut or really anytime during the season.

Could this mean the bucks on our land might not be as aggressive? Or are there horns just stronger? Any idea?

I would think some of it is your buck to doe ratio.

More does to chase less fighting to be done.

Could be several things. First things would be ratio of bucks to doe and then age class of bucks. If your ratio is out of whack the bucks may not have to fight for does. If there are not many or any mature bucks then there might not be as much fighting also. Body size can have something to do with it also if you do have very large bodied deer.

Never thought about the buck to doe ratio. That makes a lot of sense ands would probably explain the lack of broken bucks.

Come January, it's hard to find any bucks without broken antlers on our place in ST, even the 2.5 yr olds.

Yepp if you hunt the same area several years and never really see a defined rut, its prolly your ratio. Not much fighting, chasing, or crazy rutt bucks if there is a hot doe on every corner a buck looks at.

I used to hunt a high fence ranch west of Fort Worth and you had to judge racks very carefully or you would get a broken up buck. They changed their nutrition/mineral plan and the problem almost completely cleared up in one year for the larger bucks - the young bucks still got roughed up pretty bad but at those prices you did not shoot anything under 5 years old.

we used to think our bucks were gay, then I learned about the ratios

last several years have seen deer with only one side rack from nice 4 point to several young 2 points..

If you hunted in Childress you would have to kill them before the rut cause after that it's hard to find one with all his head gear. They don't jack around up there when they fight.

The deer on my place are typically pencil-horned and there is a competitive buck:doe ratio.

Midway through the rut, they have no antlers. I'm only halfway kidding.