Guess the theme: Trees and Antlers

It’s amazing what useless facts you can come across and one such fact was in a booklet I was thumbing through about farm woodlands. In the ‘did you know’ section was the fastest growing tree in the world, the Royal Empress or Foxglove Tree Paulownia tomentosa . Native to central and western China the tree can grow up to 6 metres a year, or 30 cm in three weeks.

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A Paulownia tomentosa in flower. Photo by Meneerke Bloem.

Velvet antler is the fastest growing living tissue in the animal kingdoms with a mature reindeer bull growing his full set of antlers in just 5 months to a length of approx 1 metres. Luckily for the reindeer the antlers then stop growing, the velvet skin peels off and the bony antlers are then used to fight with. Let’s face it a bull reindeer would struggle with 6 metres of antlers waving around on the top of his head!

In China, Paulownia tomentosa is traditionally planted at the birth of a girl. The fast-growing tree matures when she does. When she is eligible for marriage the tree is cut down and carved into wooden articles for her dowry. Carving the wood of Paulownia is an art form in Japan and China. The soft, lightweight seeds were commonly used as a packing material by Chinese porcelain exporters in the 19th century, before the development of polystyrene packaging.

Continuing along the Chinese theme the antler velvet from all species of deer is rich in growth hormone and highly prized in China where it is used in traditional Chinese medicine. The velvet antler however must be harvested from the deer while it is still growing, thus requiring a surgical process to cut the antlers off humanely. It is a practice not permitted in the UK but is an important revenue from deer and deer farming in other countries.

Strangely enough antlers of many deer species generally have a tree like structure to them, with a main beam or trunk, which then branches into smaller tines. Perhaps it is this familiar structure that sometimes leads people to ask the question ‘are the antlers made of wood’! I guess these misled people were never very good at biology at school!

Tilly

Spring Buds

If I was a gardener I would be looking out for the first signs of spring, daffodils pushing out of the ground and buds beginning to form on the trees. But I’m not. I’m a reindeer herder so the buds of spring I look out for are the newly growing reindeer antlers which begin to grow first among the mature bulls.

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Yearling reindeer Fly a few years ago, with new antlers just starting to ‘bud’.

Having lost their old antlers at the end of last year our mature bulls, like Balmoral, Bovril and Pera have spent the last few months antlerless which is not a good place to be because with no antlers you are at the bottom of the peck order. Even the wee calves, only 10 months old, still have their antlers and can boss any antlerless reindeer around!

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Fly a few days ago having cast an antler a little early, and presumably with ‘help’ from another reindeer. Antlers cast naturally  in Spring don’t normally bleed.

Mature bull reindeer grow the largest antlers in the herd and so to achieve this they need to start growing their antlers early. Despite still being winter here the bulls will divert food resources to growing these new antlers and this week I have just noticed the first buds of velvet antler appearing on their heads.

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Mature bull Crann in his heydey, with antlers starting to grow long before the end of winter.

Velvet antler is the fastest growing living tissue in the animal kingdom and from nothing on their heads these bull reindeer will have fully grown antlers, measuring up to 1 metre in length and weighing anything up to 10kg by the middle of August. Although the rate of growth will be slow just now, by the spring/summer the antlers visibly grow each day, with a growth rate of about 1cm/day.

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Crann in May with half-grown antlers…
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…and in August the same year, with full grown antlers.

Antlers are entirely composed of bone and to grow need a blood supply to the growing tip. The blood supply is carried by the velvet skin covering the developing bone and the velvet skin also acts as a protective cover. The velvet is also full of nerves, which make the growing antlers sensitive to contact, so protecting the soft growing tissue from injury.

Because the blood is so close to the surface the antlers always feel warm and radiate considerable heat. Indeed some scientists suggest that the antlers are important radiators of heat that help reindeer to ‘keep cool’ in the summer time.

The ultimate size of the bulls antlers depends on a number of factors but genetics and nutrition are the most important ones. The more they eat the bigger their antlers grow and if they come from parents who grew big antlers then they will more than likely grow large ones themselves. Crann has grown the biggest antlers ever in our herd and that is partly due to his parentage, his mother Burgundy grew extremely big antlers for a female. But also Crann has an insatiable appetite, always there for extra food, despite being an old reindeer now!

Tilly

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