Buck rubs –
Bucks are male deer. They rub their antlers on small trees which scrapes off some of the tree bark. They do this first to scrape the velvet off of their antlers. Velvet is a soft outer covering on the antlers that brings blood to the bone to help it grow. One time my Papa shot a whitetail and its antlers were in velvet and I got to feel them. It felt strange, instead of feeling like bone, they felt soft and fuzzy but still hard in the middle.
Later in the season buck rubs are made to mark a certain buck’s territory. They want the does to know they are ready to mate and they want other bucks to know that this is their territory. On their forehead, bucks have a special gland that makes a smell, and that smell is unique to that certain deer. They rub that smell on the trees.
This rub is on a hackberry tree. Most of the time they are made on smaller trees and bigger shrubs. I wonder why that is?
I watch for buck rubs in the woods all the time.
