Several stress factors lead to a decrease in development. The primary stress is stress on the doe from conception to birth. Her fitness and health determines which epigenetic triggers flip for the life of the offspring. Healthy does drop fawns genetically programmed for higher gene expression. If they’ve grown up in a suppressed environment their gene expression is suppressed.

Relatively even sex ratios reduce stress in the buck segment, primarily those in the younger age classes, so they aren’t using resources breeding, but rather observers, leading to better post rut recovery. This increased in fitness in the earlier years leads to better fitness at maturity.

Poor fitness/health AND uneven ratios is what most of AL gets to experience unfortunately. I’ve got properties being managed with different objectives and different habitat quality within miles of each other, that yield deer herds that are as different as night and day.