Is This the Biggest Doe in the Records?

When Doug Laird pulled the trigger on his .243, he knew he had shot a deer with a great set of antlers. He didn’t know that his “buck” was actually a doe—or was it?

With more than 50,000 entries in the Boone and Crockett records and archives dating back more than a century, there are bound to be a few cases straight out of the X-Files. For example, there are the three-tusked walrus and the moose-elk from the National Collection of Heads and Horns.

And then there are more recent entries like Doug Laird’s non-typical whitetail entry from 2014 that carried a rack that scored nearly 190 points, but it was missing a few things, such as male genitalia—at least at first glance. Laird’s buck-doe had female plumbing. According to Laird, the deer looked like a buck but behaved like a doe. It was being followed by a fawn and actively pursued by a bona fide buck when Laird shot it in late November. Its udders were even filled with milk, Laird said.

The Melk head was donated to the collection in 1910 by Mrs. Archibald Rogers, wife of Colonel Archibald Rogers, who likely killed this bull sometime in the late 1800s. Details on this three-tusked walrus are scant, but it was photographed prior to 1960 by Grancel Fitz.

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After Laird killed the Missouri buck-doe, he and a friend loaded it up to take it back to the shop for field dressing. That’s when things got weird. Both men confirmed the lack of buck parts under the hood and called local conservation agent Nathaniel Hodges who agreed to meet with them at a local taxidermy shop.

Agent Hodges confirmed that despite a trophy set of antlers, a large head and neck, the deer was of the female persuasion from the beefy shoulders down. Laird had a tag for an antlered deer and had properly attached his tag. When the dust eventually settled, Laird had a freezer full of deer meat, a studly shoulder mount, and one heck of a hunting story.

In another plot twist, Laird’s friend who owns the farm where he shot his buck-doe shot a seven-point doe nearby six years prior.

Why Some “Does” Grow Antlers

Instances of antlered does, buck-does, mutant spawn—call them what you will—are rare, but they do seem to make headlines every fall. So why do they grow antlers?

Occasionally, “true does” will generate enough testosterone to grow small, velvet-covered antlers that typically retain their velvet and never shed. A continuous elevation of testosterone can occur for a variety of reasons, including tumors in either the adrenal gland or ovaries or environmental factors that affect the hormone balance. In other cases, research suggests that antlers can sprout because of trauma to the antlerogenic periosteum, an area of the frontal bone present in both males and females, where pedicle growth takes place in males.

Another reason “does” might have antlers is because they are hermaphrodites, meaning that because of a genetic anomaly, they have both male and female sex organs or other sexual characteristics. These deer can produce velvet antlers, which may be retained year-round.

In addition, there are pseudohermaphrodites. Similar to hermaphrodites, they can have both male and female sex organs. Pseudohermaphrodites have external female sex organs along with undescended testes buried in body fat. Depending on testosterone levels, antlers can become hardened, polished, and shed.

As for Laird’s deer, it could have been that the deer had hidden testes that produced enough testosterone for a hard-antlered rack every fall. This, along with female genitalia, sounds a lot like a pseudohermaphrodite. Agent Hodges says that he doesn’t recall that any genetic testing was done to the buck to determine its true sex.

Other Female Specimens in the Records

Laird’s deer is rare—as in you have a .03 percent chance of even coming across one in the wild. But that isn’t to say there aren’t other female specimens in the records. A number of big game species like bears, cougars, and jaguars qualify for the records based on skull size, regardless of gender. It’s the same with horned game like musk ox, pronghorn, bison, and Rocky Mountain goats. Both male and female walrus wield tusks. And both genders of some antlered big game like caribou will wear headgear, too.

In those species mentioned above, females are typically smaller in physical stature and produce a smaller skull, set of antlers, or horns than males—though Rocky Mountain goats may be the hardest to field judge in terms of gender. Generally speaking, females are not going to be targeted by hunters—either because of regulations or record-book potential. This isn’t to say there aren’t record-book entries that are female specimens. According to Big Game Records LIVE, the oldest record-book entry of a female specimen is a Rocky Mountain goat that was killed in 1982, and there is one other goat from 2020. That’s all we know of, except, of course, for Laird’s very non-typical whitetail.

For Further Reading

Brown, R. D. 1983. Antler Development in Cervidae. Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute. Kingsville, Texas. USA

Donaldson, J. C., and J. K. Doutt. 1965. Antlers in Female White-Tailed Deer: A 4-Year Study. The Journal of Wildlife Management 29:699.

Gubbay, J., J. Collignon, P. Koopman, B. Capel, A. Economou, A. Munsterberg, N. Vivian, P. Goodfellow, and R. Lovell-Badge. 1990. A gene mapping to the sex-determining region of the mouse Y chromosome is a member of a novel family of embryonically expressed genes. Nature. 346: 245-250

Kent, M., T. K. Fuller, D. W. Kuehn, and A. F. Weber. 1986. Morphologic Evaluation of a Male Pseudohermaphroditic White-tailed Deer. Journal of Wildlife Diseases 22:133–135.

Li, C., and J. M. Suttie. 2001. Deer antlerogenic periosteum: a piece of postnatally retained embryonic tissue? Anatomy and Embryology 204:375–388.

Mnif, W., A. I. H. Hassine, A. Bouaziz, A. Bartegi, O. Thomas, and B. Roig. 2011. Effect of Endocrine Disruptor Pesticides: A Review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 8:2265–2303.

Robbins, C. T., and L. M. Koger. 1981. Prevention and Stimulation of Antler Growth by Injections of Calcium Chloride. The Journal of Wildlife Management 45:733.

Wang, Y., C. Zhang, N. Wang, Z. Li, R. Heller, R. Liu, Y. Zhao, J. Han, X. Pan, Z. Zheng, X. Dai, C. Chen, M. Dou, S. Peng, X. Chen, J. Liu, M. Li, K. Wang, C. Liu, Z. Lin, L. Chen, F. Hao, W. Zhu, C. Song, C. Zhao, C. Zheng, J. Wang, S. Hu, C. Li, H. Yang, L. Jiang, G. Li, M. Liu, T. S. Sonstegard, G. Zhang, Y. Jiang, W. Wang, and Q. Qiu. 2019. Genetic basis of ruminant headgear and rapid antler regeneration. Science 364:eaav6335.

Wislocki, G. B. 1954. Antlers in Female Deer, with a Report of Three Cases in Odocoileus. Journal of Mammalogy 35:486–495.