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Yes, deer antlers fall off every year. This generally happens in the springtime and the antlers begin to grow back almost immediately. The only variation comes from the age of the deer. In North America, younger deer sometimes keep their antlers until May; older deer begin shedding in February and March. We found this out by searching Yahoo! on the word "antlers." That led us to the Antler Crafts category. Usually, we'd pass on this kind of inexact match, but we had a hunch that one of the businesses listed might include some background information. After clicking on a few of the listings, a light bulb went off...
The Antler Chandeliers and Lighting Company offers a nice page explaining how deer antlers are naturally discarded by their owners. Other intriguing facts include: "Growth and hardening of the antlers is completed in late July or August," and "The reduced daylight of winter diminishes testosterone production, [which] causes the shedding of antlers." To corroborate this information, we visited a good, all-purpose information site, Britannica.com, where we found two entries related to your question. The first, a general overview of deer, taught us that both male and female reindeer
(or caribou) have antlers, whereas in most other species only the male deer have them. Another Britannica article on regeneration confirmed much of the information we found at The Antler Chandelier Company. It also mentioned that deer antlers can grow an astonishing .39 inches per day. Elk antlers can grow more than 1.05 inches per day!
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