To what extent antlers are inherited (50/50 buck:doe or some other ratio?) is still an unknown according to the Readers Digest version of studies I have found. But what I meant by what I had written is without knowing what the DNA donors look like how do you know how big of an impact you are having by taking out the malformed buck? What if you got some does with riff-raff DNA running around on your property?

Also, you keep bringing up the breeder bucks, which made me wonder - why do they have "management" or lesser cost bucks inside high-fence operations? Shouldn't they have shot those genes out since they in theory have absolute control over the DNA inside the fence?

It would be interesting for a county or several contiguous counties to do a multi-year study where only spikes on one side or no brow bucks were killed to see what the outcome would be. Take the "bad" out and let the "good" racked bucks propagate their DNA and then see what the herd looks after several years.